[Illustration: Figure 9.--AUBURNDALE ROTARY WATCH MOVEMENT. (In the author's collection.)]
The story of Hopkins' rotary watch now enters an entirely new setting with new financial backing which, however, had no apparent experience or background in mechanical work, much less watch manufacturing. Those with watchmaking experience who were brought into this new organization unquestionably did their best, based on past experience confined to conventional watches of much higher grade. Judging from the products turned out, however, they had great difficulty in making a clean break with their past and in producing a satisfactory low-priced watch of new and radical concept. The market for watches, which had been depressed, was at this time reviving a little. The _Newton Journal_,[17] referring to the American Watch Co. at Waltham reported: "The hands employed in the caseroom and the machinists have been called in. All the works are to be started the first of September."
[Illustration: Figure 10.--WILLIAM B. FOWLE, sponsor of the Auburndale Watch Co., after an engraving in S. F. Smith, _History of Newton, Massachusetts_ (Boston, 1880).]
----- [8] Chas. S. Crossman, "A complete history of watch and clock making in America," _Jewelers Circular and Horological Review_, January 1888, pp. 400, 401. This history ran as a continuing series of short articles appearing over a period of years. In his sketch of the Waterbury Watch Co., Crossman gives the name as William D. Coates, a name not found in Boyd's _Directory of the District of Columbia_ for 1875. The directory does, however, contain the name of William D. Colt, a patent attorney.
[9] U. S. patents 165830 and 165831, granted July 20, 1875.
[10] U. S. patent 186838, January 30, 1877.
[11] Patent file 165831, records of the Patent Office in the National Archives, Washington, D. C.
[12] Crossman, _op. cit._ (footnote 8), January 1888, p. 32.
[14] William B. Fowle's "Cash book," commenced January 1, 1873, and closed February 21, 1882, plus "Cash Book #5 Leaves 1 to 20 inclusive. All that were used up to my failure on August 4, 1883," are in the author's possession. They contain many entries on the "Watch Adventure" and later "Aub Watch Co." mixed in with other entries referring to everything from killing pigs to extensive stock, bond, and real estate transactions.