Images(2)

Tall Case Clock

Date1814-1825

Artist/Maker Jehu Williams (1788-1859) and John Victor (1793-1845) (Williams & Victor)

OriginAmerica, Virginia, Lynchburg

MediumMahogany, white pine, glass, iron, steel, and brass

DimensionsOH: 96"; OW(base): 20 1/8"; OD(base): 9 7/8"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1930-53

DescriptionAppearance: High broken scroll hood with pair of molded, scrolled rosettes on either side of central urn-shaped finial; glazed, arched door, opens at right; white painted dial plate with circular dial surrounded by green and red bands decorated with leaves, the dial with Arabic numerals; painted spandrels with leaves; arch above dial fitted with operating moon dial with a painted, landscape background; door flanked by free-standing, plain, Doric columns; sides of hood fitted with small, rectangular glazed panels; broad, cove molding below hood forms transition between hood and trunk; plain trunk with chamfered front edges, with a rectangular door at front with molded edges and cut out upper corners; door opens to right, with small, brass bound keyhole escutcheon at center left; broad cove molding between trunk and high, plain, rectangular base with molded bottom edge above four short, shaped bracket feet.

Construction: On the hood, the cornice is flush-mounted to the tympanum and supported with an additional glue block behind the plinth. The turned rosettes are doweled into the tympanum. An arched spacer block is attached to the lower rear of the tympanum and fills the arch above the door. The top board is nailed into a rabbet formed by the offset joint where the nailed-on upper side panels meet the lower side panels, the latter rabbeted along their rear edges to meet the back board and double through-tenoned into the runners. A deeper rabbet along the front edges of the lower side panels receives the inner door frame that is lap-joined and backed by small chamfered glue blocks. The veneered outer door frame is mortised and tenoned. The windows on the lower side panels are arched on the outside but simply dadoed to a rectangular shape on the inner surface. The columns are round-tenoned into the underside of the tympanum and tenoned into the runners at the bottom. The rear flankers are open dovetailed into the back of the hood. The lower moldings are mitered at the corners, then glued and nailed to the runners, which are mortised and tenoned together.

On the trunk, the vertically grained upper back board is nailed into rabbets on the backs of the side panels. The shoulder molding is glued and nailed in place and set above the thin veneer frieze that extends below. The side panels are veneered and extend above the shoulder molding into the hood area to form a support for the seat board. Nailed to their outer faces are thin kickers that prevent the hood from falling forward. The sides extend inside the base and are wrought-nailed to the inside of the waist moldings and further secured with spacer/glue blocks. The chamfered corners on the leading edges of the trunk are cut from thin square stock that is glued to the side panels and door frame stiles and backed by large chamfered glue blocks. These tripartite corners consist of the main chamfered column butt-joined at the top and bottom to square plinths cut with the transitional chamfer. The door frame, made of solid rather than veneered elements, is mortised and tenoned together. The door is cut from solid mahogany but faced with figured veneer. The door swings on brass table hinges, both of which were reduced in size, redrilled with new screw holes, and had decorative finials applied to the top and bottom of the central barrel.

On the base, the back board is set horizontally and is nailed into rabbets on the backs of the side panels. The waist molding is nailed in place. The base has solid side panels and a veneered front. Behind the tripartite chamfered corner stiles on either side is a long glue block and smaller corresponding glue blocks. The bottom board is flush-nailed to the underside of the base assembly and concealed by integral feet and base moldings mitered at the front corners. The feet are supported by vertical blocks and small flankers. The rear faces of the rear bracket feet are triangular in profile rather than shaped.

The clock features an eight-day, weight-driven tall case movement with an anchor-recoil escapement regulated by a seconds-beating pendulum. A rack-and-snail striking system sounds the hours on a bell. The thirteen-and-one-quarter-inch arched dial is made of painted brass. There are blued-steel hour, minute, and seconds hands, a date aperture below the dial center, and a lunar indication in the arch.

The plates are cast brass with all surfaces hammered, filed, scraped, and stoned. Four cast and turned brass pillars are riveted to the backplate and pinned at the front plate. The seat board originally was attached with screws threaded into the bottom pillars but now is fixed with hooks over the bottom pillars. The brass tube barrels are grooved and have applied end plates pinned in place. Tailless steel clicks are threaded into the great wheels, and plain brass click springs are riveted in place. The closed-end brass great wheel collets are pinned in place. The cast-brass wheels are of normal thickness with longer than standard epicycloidal teeth. The center and third wheels are mounted on pinions; the rest are on plain step collets. The wheels have four-arm crossings. There are cut pinions and parallel arbors. The pallets are mounted on a decorative, stepped, D-shaped collet. The round steel crutch-rod has a closed-end fork and is riveted into the pallet arbor. The back-cock has two steady pins. The pendulum has a replacement round steel rod and a three-and-one-half inch brass faced lead bob. The striking system has a center-mounted hammer, a replacement hammer spring screwed to the backplate, and a hammer counter screwed to the pillar. There is a four-and-one-half-inch bell-metal bell. Its standard is screwed to the outside of the backplate. The conventional motion work is uncrossed, has a minute wheel, and its brass pinion runs on a start screwed into the front plate. The bridge is square-ended. There is a twelve-hour lunar work in the arch and a twelve-hour date work. Four cast and turned brass dial feet are pinned to the false plate, which in turn has four cast-brass feet pinned to the front plate.

The overall length of the pendulum is 43 3/8”. The steel pendulum rod is a large diameter (0.2”) replacement. The bob is cast lead with a brass face. It is 3.4” diameter and 1.1” thick at its center. The pendulum nut is square brass with chamfered edges. The weights are cylindrical cast iron with cast in metal hooks. They are both 2 1/8” diameter and weigh 15 pounds each. One is 9 ½” long, the other is 9 3/8” long.

Materials: Mahogany moldings, tympanum, flankers, finial, rosettes, trunk door core, trunk door frame, columns, base side panels, feet, outer hood door frame veneers, frieze veneer below shoulder molding, trunk door veneer, trunk side veneers, and base panel front veneer; white pine all other wooden components; iron, steel, and brass movement.
Label TextDuring the first decades of the nineteenth century, market towns in the Virginia Piedmont developed strong artisan communities that served broad, regional clienteles. Lynchburg in Campbell County, one of the most vibrant of these towns, supported a number of specialized trades, including cabinetmaking and clockmaking. The most prolific of Lynchburg's clock producers was the partnership of Jehu Williams, Sr. (1788-1859), and John Victor (1793-1845), which remained in business for more than thirty years from about 1814 until Victor's death in 1845. Williams and Victor were also active in the jewelry and silver trades. Although much silver flatware with the Williams & Victor mark has been discovered, it is not known whether silver or clocks accounted for the majority of their business.

This Williams & Victor movement, a traditional eight-day design with an hour strike, parallels British work in some regards and American approaches in others. As on most imported British movements, the barrels are grooved rather than smooth. However, the character of the false plate behind the dial ultimately points toward production in the United States. Instead of being smoothly cast, as are most mass produced British examples, this plate is crudely cut by hand from sheet iron. Also suggestive of local work is the painted dial, the design and execution of which vary from British norms. The dial plate is made of brass rather than iron, a most unusual detail, while the raised and painted ornaments are quite similar to those on other Williams & Victor clocks. That painted dials were being made in some southern centers is confirmed by a 1787 newspaper advertisement wherein Matthew and William Atkinson of Baltimore touted their ability to "enamel clock faces." Yet Williams & Victor were not wholly averse to imported components as their use of a skillfully painted moon dial with boat scenes and landscapes identical to those on British examples indicates.

The clock case is typical of those used by Williams & Victor, although it is not known from whom the firm acquired it. First owned by Campbell County planter Samuel C. Tardy, this case is similar to an example that descended in the family of Thomas O. Acree (1801-1877) in Lynchburg (now in the collection of APVA Preservation Virginia). Restrained in ornamentation, both cases were made of highly figured mahogany solids and veneers, a fashionable and costly change from the native black walnut, cherry, and birch more commonly used in the Piedmont. The delicate broken-scroll pediments and chamfered case edges are also found on a third Williams & Victor clock with a case made by a different Lynchburg artisan, suggesting that the basic form represents a locally popular style (see MESDA research file 7,531).

The pediments and molding profiles of the Lynchburg clocks resemble those on a number of contemporary Fredericksburg examples, including several with movements by John M. Weidemeyer. Fredericksburg was Virginia's largest and most influential clockmaking center during the early nineteenth century, so it is not surprising that the Williams & Victor cases emulate prototypes from that town. The clockmakers themselves had connections with Fredericksburg. Williams was born just west in Culpeper County, where he lived until he moved to Lynchburg at age twenty-five. Victor, a Fredericksburg native, went to Lynchburg with his parents as an adolescent during the first decade of the nineteenth century. Nothing is known of their training, although it is likely that both men apprenticed in the Fredericksburg clock trade. There were other connections between the clockmaking and the metal trades in Fredericksburg and Lynchburg. In 1817, silversmith and jeweler Louis Weidemeyer opened a shop in Lynchburg. His brother, John, was the prominent Fredericksburg clockmaker noted above, and their kinsman, Henry Weidemeyer, was employed by Williams & Victor in the 1830s.

Unlike some clock cases from western Virginia, this example is the work of a formally trained cabinetmaker, as seen in the quality of the veneered doors, trunk sides, base facade, and cross-banded frieze just below the shoulder molding. Also at odds with some western Virginia cases is the extensive interior use of northern white pine, which coastal Virginia cabinetmakers increasingly employed after the Revolution, but which rarely appeared in goods from the Piedmont and farther west. Along with the relatively refined nature of the case construction, this divergence suggests that the maker of the Williams & Victor cases was trained in a coastal city.
InscribedThe dial is marked "Williams & Victor / LYNCHBURG." A metal plate tacked to the back of the case is inscribed "Upholstered and Repaired / 1917 BY / Turner Transfer & Storage Co. / 614 MAIN ST., LYNCHBURG, VA." "N.Y." is chalked on the left side of the case above the shoulder molding, and "75" is scratched into the front of the back board near the top. The top of the hood is marked "1" in red pencil, and the left inside surface of the trunk is marked "2" in lead pencil, both in an early hand. "Maurie Caplan / 5/3/42," a modern notation, is penciled on the back board inside the case. "H. Bailey / June 14, 1842 / 480" is penciled nearby. "L. H. Bailey / New Hamp / June 14 / 1842" is scratched into the coating on the back of the dial plate.
MarkingsNone
ProvenanceAccording to family tradition, the clock was first owned by Samuel C. Tardy of Otter River plantation in Campbell Co., Va. It descended to his daughter, Mrs. William McAdoo, of Lynchburg and New York City. The clock was sold to CWF in 1930 by her daughter, Eva T. McAdoo.

Exhibition(s)