The One Minute Geographer - Connecticut: The Yankee Gadget Maritime State (Part 2)

Place names mentioned in the post. Base map from maps-of-the-usa.com. Red circles added by the author.

We saw in the last post how Connecticut became famous for manufactured products, particularly guns. Another industry that Connecticut became famous for was clock and watch manufacturing. Connecticut dominated this industry just as it did guns and many others. At one time more than half of American manufacturers of clocks and watches were located in Connecticut.

Eli Terry (not Eli Whitney but another Eli sometimes credited with interchangeable parts) and his apprentice Seth Thomas started the Forestville Clock Manufacturing Company near Bristol. Eventually Seth Thomas took over and his name became a by-word for quality clocks. The corporation grew into Timex (“Takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin.’ ”) Timex is now owned by a Swiss corporation but the American division is still headquartered in Middlebury even though the production of watches and clocks has moved overseas.

The brass workings of a Forestville clock from antiquevintageclock.com

One more key industry: brass. Connecticut had a few copper mines west of Hartford. Copper was needed to make brass. Although the quantity and quality of the ores were paltry by modern standards, they were enough to get an early brass industry…