The Auburndale Watch Company : $b first American attempt toward the dollar watchBattison, Edwin A.
History
The Auburndale Watch Company : $b first American attempt toward the dollar watch
Battison, Edwin A.
Auburndale Watch Company (Auburndale, Mass.); Clock and watch making -- United States
William Bentley Fowle (fig. 10), new partner with Hopkins and Colt in the
watch, was born in Boston, Massachusetts on July 27, 1826. His father,
William B. Fowle, Senior, a well-known Boston teacher and educator, had
variously been a bookseller and conductor of a "Female Monitorial
School."[18] The junior William B. Fowle we have first located as a
ticket master with the Boston and Worcester Railroad in 1848,[19] and
he retained this listing in the directory through 1851. Starting in 1852
and continuing through 1862, with no indication of employer or
occupation, he had an office at 9 Merchants Exchange. In 1860 and 1862 he
was a member of the Boston Common Council, and was president of that body
in 1865. In 1862, after the second battle of Bull Run, he raised an
infantry company for the 43rd Massachusetts Volunteers and was mustered
in, September 24, 1862, with the rank of captain. From December 7, 1862,
to March 4, 1863, he was commandant of the military post at Beaufort,
North Carolina. He then reported to his regiment. On June 24, 1863, he
was left sick at New Bern, North Carolina, by his company bound for
Fortress Monroe. On July 21 he rejoined his company at Boston,
Massachusetts, in time to be mustered out on July 30 at the expiration of
his nine months' enlistment.[20]
[Illustration: Figure 11.--THE TWO LEVER ESCAPEMENTS USED IN THE
AUBURNDALE ROTARY. Note, in addition to the escapement, the absence of
banking pins and the metal balance jewel in the escapement at the left,
which is from watch No. 176. (Both watches in the author's collection.)]
In the 1864 _Boston directory_ we find him listed as treasurer of the
Bear Valley Coal Co., and the North Mountain Coal Co., with an office at
38 City Exchange. This association with the coal business continued with
changes unimportant to our story through the directories until 1877, in
which year the name is dropped from the _Boston directory_, not to
reappear until the directory of 1880, where he is listed at "Herald
Building, watches and timers." This was apparently the sales office. The
_Newton directory_ of 1877 drops its previous listing of coal after Mr.
Fowle's name and first mentions the Auburndale Watch Co.[21] In 1866
Mr. Fowle established his home, Tanglewood, in Auburndale, a village in
Newton not far from his boyhood home at West Newton and on the bank of
the Charles River about two miles upstream from the Waltham Watch Co. He
served the town of Newton as selectman from 1869 through 1871, was an
alderman in 1877, and mayor in 1878 and 1879.[22]
[Illustration: Figure 12.--A 24-HOUR DIAL for the rotary watch.
(In the author's collection.)]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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