Original factory, 1854, Waltham Watch Company, Waltham, Mass. A second, more conventional model with a 36-hour power reserve was put into production and met with success in the marketplace.
Unfortunately, the company's first offering, an innovative model which ran for eight days without winding, was a commercial failure, with about 900 pieces produced. Both Swiss and American watchmakers were employed.
"The firm attracted an able staff well versed in the field of watchmaking and willing to experiment with new methods," one historian of the firm later observed. Specialized machinery was designed and the flow of daily operations perfected. The company began with construction of a 100-foot long brick building on land in Roxbury, Massachusetts already owned by partners Howard and Davis.
Dennison observed that the watch industry in England was not highly mechanized and believed the new American firm by he and his partners could make an impact in the watch industry. Initial funding of $20,000 was raised and the American Horological Company was born.ĭennison, paid $1,200 a year to head the project, was sent to Great Britain by his partners to learn trade secrets and purchase supplies for the American effort. Davis, experienced in manufacturing, and financial angel Samuel Curtis. Joining Dennison and Howard in establishment of the company were fellow Bostonians David P. Howard initially wanted Dennison to build locomotives but instead went into business with Dennison making watches. In 1849, Dennison was approached by Edward Howard, a clock and scale maker from Boston. He found this enterprise distracted him from his dream of industrial production of watches and turned the company over to brother Eliphalet Dennison in 1849 so that he could turn his full attention to horology. In 1844 Dennison started the firm that would later emerge as the Dennison Manufacturing Company, a paper box business. This would not be his first venture, however. Mass production of clocks had come on line during the first quarter of the 19th century in the United States, moving from a handicraft to a factory basis the forward-thinking Dennison hoped to apply the same principles and techniques to the making of pocket watches. In 1833 he became a journeyman watchmaker with the firm of Currier & Trott in Boston, leaving in 1839 to go into business for himself. He served as an apprentice to a jeweler for three years as a youth and had come to Boston in 1833. Dennison was the son of a shoemaker, born in Maine in 1812. The idea for the Waltham Watch Company came from watchmaker Aaron Lufkin Dennison. Prior to 1850, watches in America were generally supplied either from England or Switzerland. Picture of the Ellery Model 1857, produced when Waltham was still named Boston Watch Company.
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