"Most likely the people over here were thankful to get any clocks at all," the boy ventured.
"Evidently there were clockmakers who worked on that theory," was McPhearson's dry answer. "Do not imagine, however, that I am condemning wholesale all the early clockmakers. On the contrary there were among them many really good workmen and every now and then a clock crops up that testifies to the skill of its dead-and-gone creator. Number Seventeen, for example, that you saw at Mr. Hawley's, was such a one. It was made, you remember, by John Bailey of Hanover, Massachusetts, and ever since the close of the eighteenth century it has ticked faithfully on, keeping excellent time. What more can you ask of a clock than that? And that is only one of many. Had we a complete list of all those early American makers, how interesting it would be! But, alas, they landed and scattered over the country, settling here and settling there, and with a few exceptions we can trace them only through town records. Two that have been successfully tracked down are William Davis, recorded as being in Boston in 1683; and Everardus Bogardus, who was located in New York in 1698. Also in 1707 there is mention of a James Patterson arriving from London and opening a Boston shop. Probably John Bailey, who was no doubt one of the clockmaking Baileys of Yorkshire, was a pioneer of a little later period. We can only list these men as we stumble upon their handiwork. Unfortunately, there are early clocks whose makers it is impossible to trace. A good many such timepieces were made for the interiors of churches or for their steeples. The church at Ipswich, Massachusetts, built in 1699, which at first had only a bell to mark the hours, arrived five years later at the dignity of a clock having both face and hands."
"That sounds like the old days in England," exclaimed Christopher.
"It was a turn backward," conceded McPhearson. "For a time our American clock history repeats in part the history of the race. We did not, to be sure, revert to water clocks; but our forefathers did not scorn to resort to sundials, sand glasses, and noon marks. And even after clocks made their appearance in this country they were at first very sparsely distributed. Many an amusing incident concerning them is found in the annals of various towns.