Terry, Eli

NAME: Terry, Eli.

ACHIEVEMENT(S): Mass production clock-making

NICKNAME/ALIAS:

DATE/PLACE OF BIRTH: 13th April 1772, in East (later South) Windsor, CT.

DATE/PLACE/AGE AT DEATH: 26th February 1852, at Plymouth, CT. Aged 80.

DISCIPLINE: Clock-making.

FIELD: Invention.

LANGUAGE: English.

PARENTS: Samuel Terry and Huldah Burnham.

SIBLINGS: Nine.

SPOUSE: Eunice Warner, died 1839. Harriet Ann Peck, married 1840.

CHILDREN:  Nine by his first marriage; two by his second.

EDUCATION: Common school.

 MAJOR WORK:

LIFE AND TIMES: From 1786 to 1792, Terry was apprenticed to several different clockmakers then, in 1793, a year after making his first clock, he set up in business in Plymouth, CT.

Prior to 1800, he had used the conventional hand tools of clock-making,  until demand increased and he found that he could raise production using water-power to drive his tools. With the machinery up and running, in three years he had established the first clock factory in the United States.

In 1807, he received an order for four thousand wooden clocks, at the high price of $4.00 each.  This allowed Terry to buy new premises and he set up the company Terry, Thomas & Hoadley, in partnership with Seth Thomas and Silas Hoadley. When the order was completed in 1810 Terry sold out to his partners.

He then set up a new business producing one-day shelf clocks with wooden works,  and gradually increased his product portfolio.  In 1814, he produced the all-wood ‘pillar scroll top case’, which became the most popular clock of the time,  and he also stepped up production and took his sons into the business.  Output during the next few years increased to twelve thousand clocks a year, selling at $15 each.

In addition to his wooden timepieces, Terry produced brass clocks of high quality, for use by watchmakers as regulators.  He also built a number of clock towers of original design and over his life,  patented ten improvements to clocks.

ASSESSMENT: The clock factory he established was the first in the United States and he is remembered as a pioneer of modern manufacturing techniques.

EXTRA CONNECTIONS: He may have been influenced by the work of <possibly influenced by> Eli Whitney*.

Employed clock-maker <he employed> Jerome*

ONELINER: Eli Terry, Yankee clock-maker

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

ANB