Barnum was finally persuaded to lend his name as security for $110,000 to aid the Jerome Clock Company. The cause of the need for $110,000, as stated to Barnum, was the dull business year, and Barnum wrote that he was impressed by the information that unless the company could get financial aid it would be forced to dismiss many of its honest, toiling operatives. He was also impressed by the general reputation of the company, whose clocks were known and sold throughout the world; they were sold even in China, where, Barnum said, the natives took the movements out and used the cases as temples for their gods, “thus proving,” wrote Barnum, “that faith was possible without ‘works.’” Chauncey Jerome’s reputation was another thing that pleased Barnum. He was a wealthy man, a pioneer clock maker, who with Seth Thomas had been associated with the manufacture of American clocks since the industry was established in this country. But what interested Barnum even more was that Chauncey Jerome had built a church in New Haven and had donated a magnificent clock to a church in Bridgeport. When the cashier of a New Haven bank expressed the opinion in a letter to Barnum that the Jerome Clock Company deserved the highest confidence, Barnum gave his notes for $50,000 and promised to accept the Jerome Clock Company’s drafts for $60,000. He was also willing that his notes should be renewed any number of times, providing that the stipulated sum of $110,000 was not exceeded. He was told that it was impossible to say when his notes would be needed most, and therefore he signed his name to notes without dates for $3,000, $5,000, and $10,000. The Jerome Clock Company went into bankruptcy in the autumn of 1855. From time to time Barnum had been asked for additional notes by the agent of the company, which he refused to furnish until he had received back his canceled notes. This was done, and he soon grew confident enough in the Jerome Company to neglect the precaution. He was told one day that the banks were hesitating to discount his notes, and upon inquiry he discovered that they had not been taken up as they expired, and that the blank date notes he had issued had been made payable for longer terms than he had intended. He soon discovered that unwittingly he had indorsed notes for more than half a million dollars, and that his money had been used to pay the debts and expenses of the Jerome Clock Company. This drain on his credit was one that Barnum’s resources could not withstand, and he was compelled to go into bankruptcy.