Dennison, Howard & Davis and The Boston Watch Company
About 1840, while Dennison was repairing watches, the “business of making new parts of the watch for repairing purposes naturally led me to think of the practicability of making the complete watch in the United States.”
“I spent years in devising a scheme to this end before I had the remotest idea that I should ever be in a position to take any part in the development of it, but enjoyed the reflection that whenever the time came for the thing, that it would naturally be done on the system I had thought out.”
“It is true I went so far as to make a miniature model (in such time as I could spare from my ordinary occupation) of the form I judged a building should be for the purpose and often spoke of the scheme to others as one that would be a great step in advancing the manufacturing interest of the country”.
“I gave much thought to machinery and methods best to be adopted; interchangeability being one of the first and most important and I well remember standing by a workman at the Springfield armory and saying to him that we should some day be making watches as he was making guns This might be about the year 1845”.
In 1849, Dennison approached Edward Howard, partner in the company Howard & Davis, with his plan to manufacture watches. Howard agreed to the proposal and, with capital from Howard & Davis and Howard’s father-in-law Samuel Curtis, they started in 1850. Dennison was the only person with knowledge of watch-making.
A new building was erected adjacent to the Howard & Davis factory in Roxbury, Massachusetts, for the firm Dennison, Howard & Davis.
Dennison went to England to buy parts which could not be manufactured in America, to hire journeymen watchmakers to make the watches, and to learn the art of gilding brass watch plates. On his return, he designed and built machinery and made a model of the first watch to be made. However, the watch (which ran eight days and had a single mainspring barrel) did not keep time accurately enough to be used and the machinery was a failure. (Regarding the machinery, Dennison later admitted he had no ability as a machinist.) In addition it was found that Dennison could not gild the plates successfully.
In 1852 Charles Moseley, a skilled machinist, and N. P. Stratton joined the company. While the machinery was rebuilt, Stratton designed a 30-hour watch and went to England to learn how to gild correctly. After which watches were manufactured and sold.
In 1854, the company moved to a new factory in Waltham, Massachusetts, and took the name of the Boston Watch Company. Aaron Dennison was the factory superintendent. Watches were manufactured there until the company was forced into bankruptcy at the beginning of 1857.
Read more about this topic: Aaron Lufkin Dennison
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