/'4o3 THE TRADITION of THE OLD WEAVERS CLOCH (Y. ^ i^ i.' / 9fL Li.cKKL i)y rill': mi:i)K(jki) wk.wkr. (I)i:(incter of dial, 4*4 inches.) THE TRADITION of the OLD WEAVER'S CLOCK J{ STUDY OF COLONIAL TIME-KEEPING By JOHN ALBREE, JR. SWAMPSCOTT, MASS. Read before the Medford Historical Society, October ii, igo2 ■J «•* ■»•• * ' fl . • % PRIVATELY PRINTED A \ J-yEPRlNTED, with additions, from J\ tlv "Historical 'T{fgistcr," l^ol. VI., No. I, January, iqoj, puNisbfd by the' Mfdford, Mass. Historical Society ^^ P. Author. St H '03 I'rrit of J. C. Miller. Jk. MBDKORU, MASS., I <> O t The Tradition of tKe Old Weaver's ClocK T TOWEVER interesting the old weaver's clock may ^ ^ be as an antique, its true worth is in its serving as a means to reveal to us the men who lived in this town and who used it. Can we assume that if the grand- parents, and aunts, and uncles, and cousins galore, whose names are on the grave stones across the street, were to troop in here tonight, we could meet with them on com- mon ground in speaking of a clock, or a watch, or of time itself? There is no question that Gov. Brooks would marshal this troop, for like the MacGregor, "Where he sat, there was the head of the table." As a boy he knew this clock, for its owner, John Albree, of Medford, was his grandfather, and in after years he must have seen it in the home of his cousin, Mrs. Jonathan Brooks. Did the men of that day recognize, as we do, that time is money? Could John Albree, the weaver on Meeting House Brook, figure out the money value of an extra throw of his shuttle, or comprehend the condition of society which sanctions a law punishing the weavers of our day if they allow their operatives to begin work ten minutes ahead of the opening time? How he and his neighbors would have resented any interference in their dealings with their servants. His own clock will help us answer these questions. 4 The Tradition oi the Old Weaver's Clock. In Charles Brooks' History of Medford, is a story that is still touching, even if it is packed away in a lot of genealogical material.* It is the story of the two chil- dren, a boy and a girl, made orphans by the Spaniards. The Spaniards and the English were in continual strife in the Bahamas, and in 1699, at Nassau, the Spaniards gained control, and beginning a course of plunder and slaughter, killed, among others, the parents of these chil- dren. Mr. Brooks relates how the orphans in some unknown way escaped and fled to the wharves and found a friend in the captain of a Boston vessel. He took pity on the helpless little folks and assured them that he would take them to Boston, licforc sailing, the captain went to the plundered home and found a clock, which he brought to the ship; so, with the sister in one hand, and the clock in the other, John Albree, at the age of twelve, began life in Mcdford, and the tradition is that this is the clock. An investigation into this tradition will give us an insight into the Medford homes of two centuries ago. Brooks, in his history, used about all the existing material concerning John Albree. The first record of him is in a list of those assessed September 2, 1701, on a "country rate," the amount being three shillings. His name appears on the lists each succeeding year. In 171 1, he married I'Llizabeth Green, who was daughter of Samuel Green (John 2, I'ercival 1), and his wife, Elizabeth Sili, who was daughter of Joseph Sill and his wife, Jemima •Urook*' History o/ Mtd/ord, p.iRc 500. THE CLOCK AS NOW MOUNTED. (Length of Pendulum below clock 38 inches.) I HI. I'iKKt Kl) I'iMAIS AM« IMK llll|.l•^ l>ll<>\\\ \l III nil (iKlt.lNM. MlillWISM. Till-. I'kciNCS, ONE ONI.H MliiWN. AKI-. In llulli III) C'l.iXK ^ll■Al)^ <>N llll WaI.I.. The Tradition of the Old Weaver's Clock. 5 Belcher, the latter being the daughter of Andrew Belcher and Elizabeth Danforth. He bought first the property afterwards known as the Thatcher Magoun estate, on the banks of the Mystic, and later, selling it, acquired the estate through which Meeting House Brook runs, on which the second meeting-house was built. He used the brook for power for his mill. It seems probable that Rural avenue was a road to his house. His grandson told how the road used to be blocked with snow in the winter. There his children and his son's children were born. The story of the clock Brooks received from his mother, who was Elizabeth Albree, daughter of John Albree. She received the clock in the division of the estate of her father, Joseph Albree, in 1777. At the same time, her brother, John Albree (1757-1842), received a silver spoon marked with the initials of the original John Albree and his wife : i.^e. Each of these heirlooms has come down, and each has its particular injunction associated with it ; that with the clock being that it shall always remain in the female line, and that with the spoon, that it shall always pass to the oldest son. The fact of these parallel heirlooms suggests that they had a com- mon origin, which is readily seen to have been when the property of John Albree's only son was divided in 1777. Furthermore, that these were thus created heirlooms shows that they were then regarded as valuable relics of John Albree, the weaver, and as the date of the son's death was less than twenty years after that of the weaver, 6 The Tradition of the Old Weaver's Clock. we find the traditions both as to spoon and clock exist- ing at that time. Thus, we are pretty near to getting confirmation from the weaver himself. But these parallel traditions, each confirming the other, are not the only evidence, and in following the other lines, we get an insight into time keeping of two hundred years ago. Stated in its simplest form, the tradition is : " The orphans brought this clock." Different people would expand this statement in different ways, according to which word, oq^hans or clock, made the deeper impres- sion. To Charles Brooks' sympathetic nature, the word orphans appealed. His history shows what a delightful man he was, always thoughtful and considerate of others. A series of family letters confirms the impression given by his history. Fortunate indeed is the man who can unconsciously, yet naturally, leave such an index of his character. But if the story were expanded on the word clock, it might be asked if there was anything strange or worthy of notice that the orphans should have arrived with a clock. There are more automubilcs owned in Mcdford tonight than there were clocks when John Albree arrived, as we will show from the inventories on file, for by means of them we can enter and ransack the homes of that lime. One of childhood's delights is to rummage in the grandparents' garret, but this garret disappears with advancing years. For us the searching of ancestors' inventories must take its place, for those lists itemize ever)'thing to the last glass bottle there was in their The Tradition of the Old Weaver's Clock. 7 homes. Let us see what we can find for time-pieces. If time-pieces existed at all, they must surely have been found in the homes of the best citizens. The men of Medford in 1728, by their own official acts, deter- mined for us who twenty-five of the best citizens were, and the list is found in Brooks' History of Medford {}^-^^(i 334). Who of us would dare to serve on a committee to nominate the twenty-five men in our respective churches who are entitled to have the first choice of seats? What heart burnings must have been caused by that custom. It is a wonder it continued so long. Of this list of twenty-five, there are on file inventories of the contents of the homes of twelve. Mr. John Francis, Sr., who heads the list, did not live long to enjoy the best pew in the new meeting house, which had been built on land bought from John Albree. A large pewter platter which he gave his daughter, Lydia, on her mar- riage is still in existence, even though one of her descend- ants did use it as a cover for a flour barrel. During the twenty years subsequent to the making of the list, seven of those pewholders passed on to " Where congregations ne'er break up And Sabbaths have no end." Of these seven there is only one whose inventory shows he had a time-piece; that was Dr. Simon Tufts. His inventory lists first his real estate, then after the two slaves, Pompey and Abraham, peculiarly personal property, is mentioned one watch, ^35. S The Tradition oi the Old Weaver's Clock. After this minute examination of the homes, possible only through the exactness of the old appraisers, we must conclude without doubt that time-pieces were rare in IMedford in the early decades of 1700, and that the appearance of a clock in the possession of these two orphans was an event to be noted and remembered. The records of Essex County, at Salem, confirm this result as to the scarcity of time-pieces, for in the three years from December, 1699, to December, 1702, there were one hundred eleven inventories filed, and in but four of them is there mention of a clock or watch, and to three of these the epithet old is attached, indicating that they were probably out of repair and useless. The records at Boston for 1699- 1700 show seventy- two inventories, in but eight of which clocks or watches are mentioned. The question may now be asked, " If they had no clocks or watches, how did they keep time ? " Rut, before answering, we must determine what we of 1900 mean by keeping time. We follow time so closely that it is seldom we are surprised at finding our watches indicating a different hour and minute from what we anticipated before looking. With this in mind, how shall we define keeping time in Medford in 1700, when the smallest subdivision on the hour dial of the weaver's clock is the quarter of an hour, and furthermore, it never had but one hand, and that the hour hand ? What sort of a mess wcnild the men of today make ui their work if The Tradition of the Old Weaver's Clock. 9 but five only out of one hundred possessed time-pieces, and these with the hour hand only ? Which question will you discuss therefore, — how did they keep time, or did they keep time at all ? Yet they did keep some sort of time and had some rule. The infant frets when he is hungry and rubs his little nose when he is sleepy, and that is about all the rule he has for time-keeping. I am disposed to think that the men of Massachusetts Bay two hundred years ago did not advance very far beyond the infant's rule. However, let them speak for themselves in language of their own choice, for, fortunately, we have at our disposal a large amount of material touching the con- temporary use of words of time measurement. This is found in the depositions and the evidence in the witch- craft trials of 1692 preserved at Salem. I cite these cases because the date is nearly coincident with the arrival of the orphans, and because Medford, the old home of the clock, and Salem Village, now Dan vers, were both rural communities near large towns. In judicial proceedings we expect some degree of exactness, certainly more so than in colloquial speech. A collation of the references to words of time measure- ment or definition there found shows that there were three periods — sunrise, noon, and sunset — to some one or other of which most of the witnesses referred events, using in each case a number of words to express their meaning, as for example, "One morning, about sunrising, as I was in bed " ; " very early in the morning, as soon lo The Tradition of the Old Weaver's Clock. as it was well light " ; " presently after it was fair light abroad in the room " ; " he never rose till break of day." '* At noon," or "about noon," was the one fixed time, for all were awake and hungry, and the sun, if it shone, was on the noon mark on the floor. One man uses the phrase, "about an hour by the sun," that is one o'clock. -Another says an event occurred "about the middle of the afternoon." The courts and ofificial notices set nine o'clock. Church meetings were at two. The earlier hour must have been fixed by the completion of break- fast and the morning chores, and two o'clock held the same relation to dinner and the noon duties. For time about sunset, cumbersome phrases, similar to those for morning, were used, as " Toward night, when ye catel came home," and others. One specific instance shows the working of this method, or lack of method, of keeping time. Parris, the minister at Salem Village, adjourned a church committee meeting as noted in the records, November I, 1 69 1, "to meet tomorrow an hour and a half before sun-down." His entry for the meeting the next day is, " After sunset about seventeen of llu- l^rethren met." Here was an important meeting of a committee, some of the members of which inust have wasted at least an hour and a half, that is, looking at it from our day. Hut it is hard to define the conditions of one age in the terms of another. They had sunrise, noon, and sunset, fixed times on which all agreed, and they guessed at the rest, and their needs seem to have been The Tradition of the Old Weaver's Clock. 1 1 satisfied. Each household then was sufficient unto itself. It had practically under its roof its water, its fuel, its lights, and its stock of food in the cellar. A great snowstorm that to us is a calamity, to them was an inconvenience. Such independence is impossible now. A bargain hunter drops a brass curtain rod on the subway track, and in countless homes, from Milton to Medford, the evening meal is late. The breaking of a steam pipe in a power house puts a city in darkness. We all depend for our existence upon each other; and we all carry the same time in our pockets to regulate not only our own movements, but the movements of everybody else. The man with a slow watch, or no watch, the world pushes one side, and there he stays until he rouses himself. The clock itself has undergone changes. When John Albree brought it here, perhaps twenty years after it was made, it had a bell on top supported by the four finials, which are pierced for that purpose. It had a short, " bob " pendulum that received its name from its rapid apj^ear- ance at either side through slits in the doors, which have also disappeared. This " bob " pendulum with this escapement was of the form in use from 1658, when the pendulum was invented, until the long, or royal, pendu- lum and anchor escapement were invented in 1675. Sometime in the eighteenth century the clock fell into the hands of a blacksmith who fixed clocks when horse- shoeing and nail-making were dull. He cleared away the 1 2 The Tradition of the Old Weaver's Clock. alarm and its works to make the necessary' changes so that he could attach the long pendulum. The form of the grandfather's, or hall, clock was evolved from this form of clock. First, a hood was made to keep out the dust ; then the hood was sup- ported by a long case which protected the pendulum, for the hanging weights and swinging "bob" must have proved to be an attractive plaything for a child or a kitten. The pillars at the side, the arched top of the dial, and the brass finials then became features of the tall clock and are still retained. A study of this clock establishes two points ; first, the independence of the individual in 1700 as contrasted with the inter-dependence in 1900; and second, that when in answer to the question that seems to be upper- most when one first looks at the old weaver's clock, " can it keep time ? " the reply is made, " it keeps the time of I 700," the meaning is clear. Hon.— OU Clocks and Watchtt and tkdr Mak*rs by F. J. Britten (London, 1899) is valuable ior facu conccrnint; the cencral kubjcct ol time-pieces, while the results ol the exhaustive researches oi Dr. Irving Lyon, given in his Colonial Furniturf 0/ Ncu Kti/^latiJ (Hoston, 1891, now unfortu- nately out ol print), khouM be ktudied by those desiring to learn tlie state ol the art in the Colonies. A» to hall clucks, consult in addition " Notes on I-ong Case Clocks," in Studio Magazine (Lon- don), August, 190a, by Dritten. — J. A. Jx. Wkddinu Si'oon ((|- I(»n\ Amikki. a\i> I-i.i/..\iii:tii (Jkickn, 171 i. (Actual si/c.) TKe Wedding Spoon nr^HE letter about the wedding spoon, cuts of both •^ being here shown, was written by John Albree ( 1 757-1842) in 1829, shortly after the birth of his first grandson, also named John, six hundred miles away. The thoughts and feelings of a grandfather, aroused by this event, may have shown him why his own grand- father used to " poak " him as described in the letter. Its writer, John Albree, the son of Joseph Albree and Judith (Reeves), was born in Medford, November 9, 1757. While he did not carry a gun at Bunker Hill, he used to say that he had a part in the battle, for he worked hauling hay for the hay fence which was so much of a feature in delaying the British advance. The Massachusetts Records of the Revolution show his service in that war. The first record is as corporal in Capt. Stephen Dana's company in Col. Mcintosh's regiment. This regiment was raised for one month's service at the lines at Boston (Revolutionary Rolls Collection, vol. 18, page 240). The date of his enlist- ment was March 19, 1776, directly after the evacuation of Boston by the British on March 17.* In vol. 72, page 256, is a record of his having paid *Miss Helen Tilden Wild, author and compiler of Medford in the Revolution, discovered this fact with many others, tor tiie name is spelled " Alfree " on th.e roll. 14 The Wedding Spoon. money, in July, 1776, towards hiring men to go to Canada. The Town of Medford voted to pay a bounty in addition to what the Province offered, but as it did not have the money, the amount was advanced by three citizens named Hall, and they were reimbursed in various amounts by citizens whose loans were to be paid back to them " when they paid their next tax bills."* He enlisted again, December 14, 1776, in Capt. Brooks' company in Col. Dike's regiment, the period of service having been three months in and around Boston (vol. 26, page 417). On the death of his father Joseph, in 1777, he was made administrator of the estate, though not of age, as appears by the Probate Records of Middlesex County at Cambridge. January 6, 1793, he married Lydia, daughter of William and Rebecca (Tufts) Tufts of Medford. Soon after his marriage he moved to Acworth, N. H., where his brother Joseph lived. Here his first son, John, was born, January 23, 1794. After a year or two he moved to Salem, which was his home thereafter. He was a general trader, at times freighting vessels, and later became a tallow chandler or maker of candles, as shown by his account book, lately found. He lived at 5 Carlton street, and, after 1836, at 264 Essex street, where he died, November 6, 1842, lacking three days of eighty-five years of age. His widow survived him eight years, and died in 1850. They had children as follows: John, 1794-1863, a *Mtd/ord in tkt Revolution, page 15. The Wedding Spoon. 15 Boston merchant. George, died in infancy. Lydia, 1798-1824, unmarried. George, 1803-1880, a Pittsburgh merchant. He was wounded while serving on the Salem privateer, Holker, in the War of 181 2, and was the last survivor of pensioned privateersmen of that war.* Wil- liam, 1 805- 1 880, of Pittsburgh. Elizabeth, 181Q-1896, married John Downie, lived in Salem and Boston. The letter is as follows : — History of the Spoon Son George as you have a Son whom you call John Naturally Draws the following from me this Son of yours is the 4 Generation from the John Albree whose first introduction into this Country at 12 years old you now have from me this Spoon was made at his Marriage to E Green about 1 1 7 years past & tradition of our Family informed me when young that my Grandfather Albree Said if his Son Joseph Should have a Son & Call his Name John this Spoon was for him & if he Should live to See that he Should then be ready to die this my Sons he did & appears to have lived 2 months & 20 odd Days &: Died traditions of our Family that I well remember was he that A Sat by & rocked my Cradle Cont[in]ually & often would poak me to wake me & then Call the Maid *A sailor was carelessly handling a flint lock pistol and the eleven-year-old boy was hit in the leg. Earlier in the trip this boy had been left in sole charge of some surplus stores which had been landed on an uninhabited island off the Maine coast. i6 The Wedding Spoon. to take me up that he might Se me & hear me Cry this Spoon Son George I present to your Son John through the hands of your Brother John* who is the third Generation it is 117 years old 8c is marked on the handle when made it has ben in ware all that time 1 now & A got it hamerd out & poleshed & redused it to a by paring[?] papp Spoon ^ Such as it is I present to him Hopeing with Some Faith that the Supream Architecture of the Universe will Protect & Prosper both you & your John & all our Family to old age virtue & Honour John Albree •John Albree (179^-1863) ol Ik)k(on and Lynn. ^"4 A^^.^J^U^c^ -Tftu rad /,^n ^^^f^f ^'^^rT^ [/ ^*./>7 ^i ri y-"> ^ Y- >^'' /«M /..-... ^