33 Facts About Simon Willard

Simon Willard was a celebrated American clockmaker.

Simon Willard clocks were produced in Massachusetts in the towns of Grafton and Roxbury, near Boston.

The original Willard family had arrived in 1634 from Horsmonden, Kent, and they were among the founders of Concord, Massachusetts.

Simon Willard's parents were Benjamin Willard and Sarah Brooks, who were Grafton natives.

Simon Willard was the second son; his brothers were Benjamin, Aaron, and Ephraim.

When Simon Willard was born, the house had just one room.

The elder brother, Benjamin, who was 10 years older than Simon Willard, learned horology and opened a workshop adjacent to the house in 1766.

At the age of eleven, Simon Willard began to study horology, showing some inherent aptitude for it.

Years afterward, Simon Willard revealed that Morris did not actually know much on the matter and that his brother Benjamin had been his actual mentor.

At his workshop in Grafton, Simon Willard studied the clocks by other makers which were brought to him to be repaired.

Simon Willard extensively experimented, seeking to improve the efficiency of the driving and the regulation parts of those timepieces' parts.

Nonetheless, from the 1790s onward, Simon Willard's workshop built tall clocks in great numbers while performing general clock repair.

Simon and Aaron Willard both combined 18th century knowledge of horology with then-contemporary industrial methods.

Simon and Aaron Willard each developed an industrial zone, throughout a quarter-mile radius around their shops.

Indeed, Simon Willard preferred to build sumptuous models that featured elaborate artistic details.

Simon Willard's clocks required considerable skilled handcraftsmanship, and their movements were outstandingly precise.

Simon Willard's workshop produced fewer clocks than did Aaron's, and today the higher prices that Simon Willard's clocks reach at auction reflect their superior refinement.

Simon Willard personally interviewed his customers, evaluating each detail, and he ordered his technicians to extensively test each movement in the customer's own home.

Into each clock, Simon Willard included a brochure, instructions, and a written guarantee.

Simon Willard built longcase clocks which were quite sumptuous, being adorned with many fine details.

Simon Willard invented the Patent Timepiece, later called the "banjo" clock, at Roxbury.

Willard patented its creation quite late but most competitors of Simon dodged this document, reaping much money with their own versions of the Patent Timepiece.

Additionally, Simon Willard expanded the Banjo clock in accordance with the patent, making much larger "seconds beating" regulators.

Subsequently, on November 25,1801, Simon Willard made his application to the US Patent Office.

In subsequent years, Simon Willard visited Thomas Jefferson at his home, Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia.

Minister Joseph Eckley and the congregation of Old South Meeting House in Boston, the site of planning for the Boston Tea Party, commissioned Simon Willard to build a carved and gilded gallery clock to hang opposite the pulpit on the balustrade of the room's south gallery.

For 50 years, Simon Willard was responsible for the periodic maintenance of all clocks at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Simon Willard fixed the orrery by drilling a hole and fastening a rivet.

In 1826, Thomas Jefferson requested that Simon Willard build a clock for the University of Virginia at Charlottesville.

Immediately after arriving to Boston, Simon Willard developed a movable mechanism to turn meat on a spit, the roasting jack, which was specifically designed for outdoor fireplaces.

The third clock which was patented by Simon Willard was the Patent Alarm Timepiece, which was known as the Lighthouse and which was similar to the English Skeleton Timepiece.

In 1787, Simon Willard married again, to Mary Bird, a 24-year-old Boston native.

Simon Willard sold his business to Elnathan Taber, his apprentice.