This, then, was the situation at about the middle of the nineteenth century when watchmaking in America was beginning to grow into a large industry. The French had always made good watches and very beautiful and elaborate ones too, but they never made very many. The English were falling behind so far that it was said, in 1870, that half the watchmakers' tools in England were in pawn. The Swiss were in control of the business, making both the best and the worst watches in the world and by far the greatest number. Everywhere a good watch was still too costly to be owned by anyone of moderate means, while cheap watches were little more than toys which could not be depended upon either to wear well or to keep good time. In spite of all developments, therefore, there still remained the need both for a high-grade watch at a reasonable price and for a cheap watch that would be accurate under rough usage. These things were genuinely necessary, for the world was growing steadily away from the theory of special privilege, and the requirements of the average man were becoming more insistent. From those early days, when the astrologers in Mesopotamia had kept their knowledge a secret for themselves, down through more than forty centuries, only a few had possessed the means of accurately telling time; but now had come the railroad, the telegraph, the modern factory, the newspaper and many other developments which speeded up the movements of humanity in the rush and whirl of modern life until it had become absolutely necessary that the means of measuring and performing those movements in an economical manner should be within the reach of every man. It remains to be shown how American watchmaking discovered this need and organized to meet it; how it found and filled the gap that had been left in foreign watchmaking, between high-priced watches that were good, and low-priced watches that were not good; how it developed a cheaper good watch and a better low-priced one than the world had so far known; and how, in so doing, the American industry has grown within the memory of living men to such an extent as to take second place, and, in many respects, first place in watchmaking throughout the world. CHAPTER TWELVE _How An American Industry Came On Horseback_ At last the clock industry came to America, and it came on horseback. If you had been upon a dusty country road in Connecticut about the year 1800, you might have seen a plainly dressed young man come riding along with a clock strapped to each side of his saddle and a third fastened crosswise behind him. "Hello, Eli Terry!" you might have heard some farmer sing out, as the rider drew near. "Hello, Silas," the other would call back; "don't you think it's about time you bought a clock?" "Can't afford it, Eli; it takes me a long time to make forty dollars raising wheat."