My guardian, a good old man, told me that there was so many clocks then making, that the country would soon be filled with them, and the business would be good for nothing in two or three years. This opinion of that wise man made me feel very sad. I well remember, when I was about twelve years old, what I heard some old gentleman say, at a training, (all of the good folks in those days were as sure to go to training as to attend church,) they were talking about Mr. Terry; the foolish man they said, had begun to make two hundred clocks; one said, he never would live long enough to finish them; another remarked, that if he did he never would, nor could possibly sell so many, and ridiculed the very idea. I was a little fellow, but heard and swallowed every word those wise men said, but I did not relish it at all, for I meant some day to make clocks myself, if I lived. What would those good old men have thought when they were laughing at and ridiculing Mr. Terry, if they had known that the little urchin who was so eagerly listening to their conversation would live to make _Two Hundred Thousand_ metal clocks in one year, and _many millions_ in his life. They have probably been dead for years, that little boy is now an old man, and during his life has seen these great changes. The clock business has grown to be one of the largest in the country, and almost every kind of American manufactures have improved in much the same ratio, and I cannot now believe that there will ever be in the same space of future time so many improvements and inventions as those of the past half century--one of the most important in the history of the world. Everyday things with us now would have appeared to our forefathers as incredible. But returning to my story--having got myself tolerably well posted about clocks at Waterbury, I hired myself to two men to go into the state of New Jersey, to make the old fashioned seven foot standing clock-case. Messrs. Hotchkiss and Pierpont, of Plymouth, had been selling that kind of a clock without the cases, in the northern part of that State, for about twenty dollars, apiece. The purchasers, had complained to them however, that there was no one in that region that could make the case for them, which prevented many others from buying. These two men whom I went with, told them that they would get some one to go out from Connecticut, to make the case, and thought they could be made for about eighteen or twenty dollars apiece, which would then make the whole clock cost about forty dollars--not so very costly after all; for a clock was then considered the most useful of anything that could be had in a family, for what it cost. I entered into an agreement with these men at once, and a few days after, we three started on the 14th Dec., 1812, in an old lumber wagon, with provisions for the journey, to the far off Jersey. This same trip can now be made in a few hours. We were _many_ days. We passed through Watertown, and other