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ELI TERRY: Clockmaker of Connecticut by Leslie Allen Jones

ELI TERRY: Clockmaker of Connecticut

By

Pub Date: Sept. 10th, 1942
Publisher: Farrar & Rinehart

This biography starts with Eli Terry in his 'teens in 1786 living in Windsor in the northern part of Connecticut. Unusually handy, he is apprenticed young to Daniel Burnap, the clock maker and repairer. Like all the rest of his kind he became an excellent Jack-of-all-trades, including even simple dentistry. Those were the days of the traveling peddlers and in a few years Eli was entrusted with a selling trip to Harland in Norwich. He became interested in making fire-engines, but his great feat as he grew in years and knowledge, was to produce clocks in great quantities at low prices, for he used wood for his wheels instead of brass. He had one order for four thousand clocks to be delivered to Waterbury. In 1826 he made the clocks for Center Church in New Haven. Eli Jr. carried on the business in Terryville. This should appeal particularly to boys; though the action is naturally slow it is well written and an interesting picture of one of the great New England trades.