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Show Little Journeys in f. - Americana 5 o X By LESTER B. COLBY A V v x--k-kw-m-:-:-:"M-:-:-:-:-x-" What Came of Whittling jpLI TERRY was considered worth-less worth-less utterly. Some of his neighbors neigh-bors Intimated that he was daft A few advised his young wife to leave him, and she finally came C a mind to do so. She went home on ong visits vis-its to her people, because there was little food In Eli Terry's house. Folk who lived In Waterbury, Conn., considered Eli Terry shiftless and no-nceount no-nceount because he spent all bis time ' whittling. All day he whittled instead of working. He got old, dried lumber and planed it down to smoothness. Then he would take a compass and make drawings on it. Peculiar wheels and levers with notches came out of the wood. But there was no money in all this and Mrs. Terry soured. Neighbors were critical and the gossip grew. Then one day EII Terry put all his wheels together to-gether and he had a wooden clock. It was a good working clock, large and Impressive and It kept good time. A neighbor, who had wealth, bought It of Eli Terry for thirty dollars. That night there was plenty of food in Ell Terry's home and bis wife thought better of him. All of the thirty dollars, however, did not go for food. He spent a part of it for tools. He loved tools and he had work for tools to do. The next time he made a wheel he would finish twenty-five wheels just like It. When he had his parts ail made he began to assemble them. Soon he had twenty-five completed clocks. A cabinet-maker, under contract, had been making cases for them. Very soon everyone who could afford af-ford to buy one wanted one of Eli Terry's clocks. The price went to forty for-ty dollars for case and clock. This clock-making began about 1S0O. In the year ISO", Eli Terry purchased an old mill and equipped it for turning out clock parts by machinery. Several prominent citizens of Water-bury, Water-bury, Conn., agreed to back him and a company was formed. In 1S0S Terry started to make clocks In lots of 300. This was the largest batcL of clocks that up to (hen had ever been made at one time in the history of the world. Improvements followed, quantity production was undertaken, operations were speeded up and Eli Terry became be-came the Henry Ford of the clock-making clock-making world overnight Yeaith poured in. But bis period as an active clock-maker was brief. Seth Thomas and Silas Hoadiey, workers trained in bis plant, purchased pur-chased the business in 1S10 and Terry Ter-ry retired. But bis wealth was mostly reinvested in clock-nuking plants and plants of this kind sprang up thick in Connecticut. Eventually the wooden clock craze died out. Better clocks were made of brass. Finer machinery was possible. Cost was cut down. The wooden clocks vanished. But not the clock industry in-dustry that Eli Terry had fathered in Connecticut. j For more than a hundred years Con- : necticut has made more clocks in more factories than were made in any similar spot anywhere on the face of the earth. There must have been some pride, too. In the hearts of old Eli Terry and old Seth Thomas. Eli founded a city which he called Ter-ryville Ter-ryville and Seth founded another which he named Thomaston. Ell died In 1S52, his muzzle whitened I by his eighty years. His family, for the next half century, thrived on the gold that old Eli bad laid .-.way. When he died, EII Terry and his sons controlled con-trolled about all the wealth In Terry-ville. Terry-ville. But latterly, (he Terrys hnve gone like their wooden clocks. Vanished. Van-ished. There are no more Terrys Jn Terryvllle. (. 19C9. Lester B Colby.) |