REMOVAL TO NEW HAVEN.--FACTORY AT BRISTOL DESTROYED BY FIRE.--OTHER
TROUBLES, ETC.
In the winter of 1844, I moved to the city of New Haven with the
expectation of making my cases there. I had fitted up two large
factories in Bristol for making brass movements only the year before,
and had spared no pains to have them just right. My factory in New Haven
was fitted up expressly for making the cases and boxing the finished
clocks; the movements were packed, one hundred in a box, and sent to New
Haven where they were cased and shipped. Business moved on very
prosperously for about one year. On the 23d of April 1845, about the
middle of the afternoon one of my factories in Bristol took fire, as it
was supposed by some boys playing with matches at the back side of the
building, which set fire to some shavings under the floor. It seemed
impossible to put it out and it proved to be the most disastrous fire
that ever occurred in a country town. There were seven or eight
buildings destroyed, together with all the machinery for making clocks,
which was very costly and extensive. There were somewhere between fifty
and seventy-five thousand brass movements in the works, a large number
of them finished, and worth one dollar apiece. The loss was about fifty
thousand dollars and the insurance only ten thousand. This was another
dark day for me. I had been very sick all winter with the Typhus fever,
and from Christmas to April had not been able to go to Bristol. On the
same night of the fire, a man came to tell me of the great loss. I was
in another part of the house when he arrived with the message, but my
wife did not think it prudent to inform me then, but in the latter part
of the night she introduced a conversation that was calculated to
prepare my mind for the sad news, and in a cautious manner informed me.
I was at that time in the midst of my troubles with Frank Merrills, had
been sick for a long time, and at one time was not expected to recover.
I was not then able to attend to business and felt much depressed on
that account. It was hard indeed to grapple with so much in one year,
but I tried to make the best of it and to feel that these trials,
troubles and disappointments sent upon us in this world, are blessings
in disguise. Oh! if we could really feel this to be so in all of our
troubles, it would be well for us in this world and better in the next.
I never have seen the real total depravity of the human heart show
itself more plainly or clearly than it did when my factories were
destroyed by fire. An envious feeling had always been exhibited by
others in the same business towards me, and those who had made the most
out of my improvements and had injured my reputation by making an
inferior article, were the very ones who rejoiced the most then. Not a
single man of them ever did or could look me in the face and say that I
had ever injured him. This feeling towards me was all because I was in
their way and my clocks at that time were preferred before any others.
They really thought I never could start again, and many said that Jerome
would never make any more clocks. I learned this maxim long ago, that
when a man injures another unreasonably, to act out human nature he has
got to keep on misrepresenting and abusing him to make himself appear
right in the sight of the world. Soon after the fire in Bristol I had
gained my strength sufficiently to go ahead again, and commenced to make
additions to my case factory in New Haven (to make the movements,) and
by the last of June was ready to commence operations on the brass
movements. I then brought my men from Bristol--the movement makers--and
a noble set of men as ever came into New Haven at one time. Look at John
Woodruff; he was a young man then of nineteen. When he first came to
work for me at the age of fifteen, I believed that he was destined to be
a leading man. He is now in Congress (elected for the second time,)
honest, kind, gentlemanly, and respected in Congress and out of
Congress. Look at him, young men, and pattern after him, you can see in
his case what honesty, industry and perseverance will accomplish.
There was great competition in the business for several years after I
moved to New Haven, and a great many poor clocks made. The business of
selling greatly increased in New York, and within three or four years
after I introduced the one day brass clock, several companies in Bristol
and Plymouth commenced making them. Most of them manufactured an
inferior article of movement, but found sale for great numbers of them
to parties that were casing clocks in New York. This way of managing
proved to be a great damage to the Connecticut clock makers. The New
York men would buy the very poorest movements and put them into cheap
O.G. cases and undersell us. Merchants from the country, about this
time, began to buy clocks with their other goods. They had heard about
Jerome's clocks which had been retailed about the country, and that they
were good time-keepers, and would enquire for my clocks. These New York
men would say that they were agents for Jerome and that they would have
a plenty in a few days, and make a sale to these merchants of Jerome
clocks. They would then go to the Printers and have a lot of labels
struck off and put into their cheap clocks, and palm them off as mine.
This fraud was carried on for several years. I finally sued some of
these blackleg parties, Samuels & Dunn, and Sperry & Shaw, and found out
to my satisfaction that they had used more than two hundred thousand of
my labels. They had probably sent about one hundred thousand to Europe.
I sued Samuels & Dunn for twenty thousand dollars and when it came to
trial I proved it on them clearly. I should have got for damages fifteen
thousand dollars, had it not been for one of the jury. One was for
giving me twenty thousand, another Eighteen, and the others down to
seven thousand five hundred. This one man whom I speak of, was opposed
to giving me anything, but to settle it, went as high as two thousand
three hundred. The jury thought that I had a great deal of trouble with
this case and rather than have it go to another court, had to come to
this man's terms. The foreman told me afterwards that he had no doubt
but this man was bought. New York is a hard place to have a law suit in.
This cheat had been carried on for years, both in this country and in
Europe,--using my labels and selling poor articles, and in this way
robbing me of my reputation by the basest means. After this Sperry, who
was in company with Shaw, had been dead a short time, a statement was
published in the New York papers that this Henry Sperry was a wonderful
man, and that he was the first man who went to England with Yankee
clocks. After I had sent over my two men and had got my clocks well
introduced, and had them there more than a year, Sperry & Shaw, hearing
that we were doing well and selling a good many, thought they would take
a trip to Europe, and took along perhaps fifty boxes of clocks. I have
since heard that their conduct was very bad while there, and this is all
they did towards introducing clocks. There is no one who can claim any
credit of introducing American clocks into that country excepting
myself. After I had opened a store in New York, we did, in a measure,
stop these men from using my labels.
I have said that when I got up this one day brass clock in 1838, that
the fourth chapter in the Yankee clock business had commenced. Perhaps
Seth Thomas hated as bad as any one did to change his whole business of
clock making for the second time, and adopt the same thing that I had
introduced. He never invented any thing new, and would now probably have
been making the same old hang-up wood clocks of fifty years ago, had it
not been for others and their improvements. He was highly incensed at me
because I was the means of his having to change. He hired a man to go
around to my customers and offer his clocks at fifty and seventy-five
cents less than I was selling. A man by the name of J.C. Brown carried
on the business in Bristol a long time, and made a good many fine
clocks, but finally gave up the business. Elisha Monross, Smith &
Goodrich, Brewster & Ingraham were all in the same business, but have
given it up, and the clock making of Connecticut is now mostly done in
five large factories in different parts of the State, about which I
shall speak hereafter.