Images(5)

Tall case clock

Date1765-1785

Maker Thomas Walker

Possibly by James Allan (1716 - 1789)

OriginAmerica, Virginia, Fredericksburg

MediumBlack walnut, yellow pine, brass, iron, and steel

DimensionsOH: 97 1/4"; OW: 21 1/4"; OD: 9 1/2"

Credit LineGift of Jane C. Lanham and Shirley Lanham McCrary

Object number1984-271,A

DescriptionDescription: Tall case clock; reversed arch or “pagoda” shaped pediment with fretwork panel backed by red silk inset in center of tympanum; (replaced) flame finials on integrated square plinths at sides; large, arched cove molded edge at bottom of tympanum outlining hood door; glazed, arched door with small, thumb-molded inner edge opens on proper left side; hood door flanked by two detached, plain columns at front corners and two engaged, plain columns on rear corners; wide coved shoulder molding over rectangular trunk; central pendulum door with thumb-molding around exterior and ogival shaped top edge; wide coved waist molding; base with rectangular applied panel with inset corners; ogee base molding and ogee bracket feet (replaced).

Brass arched dial with silvered chapter ring with Roman numeral hours and Arabic minutes’ silvered second dial centered above hands with Arabic numerals; blued steel pierced rococo hour and minute hands flanked by winding holes; square date aperture centered below hands; cast spandrels in corners of dial and flanking round, domed silvered name boss in center of arch; boss engraved "Thomas Walker / FREDERICKSBURG."

Construction: On the hood, the top boards are nailed into rabbets on the tympanum and sides and flush-nailed onto the back boards. The back board is dovetailed to the yellow pine interiors of the veneered upper side panels. The veneered sides are dovetailed in the same way to the support for the veneered tympanum. All of the veneers are one-quarter-inch thick. The top of the tympanum is fenestrated and backed with a pierced fretwork panel. The corner plinths are glued into rabbets formed by the convergence of the tympanum and upper side panels. The arched molding above the door rests in a rabbet formed by the lower edge of the tympanum. The inset lower side panels are flush-nailed to the inner edges of the upper side panels. The leading edge on either side is faced with a thick vertical stile with an angled facade that forms the background for the columns. These stiles also form a rabbet for the inner frame, whose upper member is additionally nailed to a spacer behind the tympanum. Attached to the bottom of either side panel is a wooden member that serves as a runner for the hood when it is slid onto the trunk. These pieces are triple-tenoned to the bottoms of the side panels and are joined to a front framing member. The engaged columns at the rear are backed by thin vertical strips open-tenoned into the frame at the top and bottom.

On the trunk and base, a one-piece yellow pine back board is nailed into rabbets on the sides. The shoulder molding is glued to the sides and front. The trunk sides sit in rabbets on the front stiles, and the upper and lower door rails are tenoned into the same stiles. The trunk sides are nailed at the bottom to the inside of the waist moldings, which are flush-mounted to the base. The sides on the base are nailed to the bottom board, joinery that is covered by the flush-mounted base moldings. The base sides sit in rabbets formed by the front stiles, which are mortised and tenoned together with the upper member mitered on the facade. The panel is flush-mounted to the frame and further secured with small (approximately one-half-inch) glue blocks chamfered on their rear surfaces.

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 twelve-inch-wide cast-brass arched dial has cast-brass corner spandrels. The dial plate was cast with voids behind the chapter ring and roundel to save on metal. There are blued-steel hour, minute, and seconds hands. A date aperture appears below the dial center.

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 movement was originally secured with seat board screws threaded into the bottom pillars but now is attached 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; 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. There are cut pinions and parallel arbors. The pallets are mounted on a step-collet. The square steel crutch-rod has a closed-end fork and is riveted into the pallet arbor. The back-cock has two steel steady-pins. The pendulum has a steel rod and a three-and-one-half-inch diameter brass-faced lead bob. The striking system's center-mounted hammer has a hammer spring on the backplate with an L-shaped stop threaded into the upper pillar to act as an adjustable counter. The standard of the four-inch diameter bell-metal bell is screwed to the inside of the backplate. There is a conventional motion work. The cannon and minute wheels have three-arm crossings, and the brass minute pinion runs on a start screwed into the front plate. The bridge is round-ended. There is a twenty-four-hour date work. Four cast and turned brass dial feet are pinned to the movement. The cast-brass pulleys are of standard pattern with riveted iron stirrups.

The pendulum rod is round steel with a hexagonal brass nut for pendulum length adjustment. The bob is cast lead with a polished brass face.

Materials: Black walnut hood runners and all exposed parts of hood, trunk, and base; yellow pine all other wooden components; brass, iron, and steel movement.
Label TextOnly seven of the many known tall clock movements signed by Thomas Walker of Fredericksburg survive in their original cases. One was made in the Valley of Virginia and represents the exportation of a Walker movement to western Virginia (CWF accession 1951-578). The remaining six were made in Fredericksburg, five of them in one as yet unidentified shop. The five cases exhibit highly refined, lightweight, British-inspired construction that is most evident in their extremely thin carcass sides and the minimal use of interior glue blocks. One case has a flat-topped hood, and three others, including the one shown here, have "pyrimidical" hoods with fretted sound holes, a form also common on mid- to late-eighteenth-century British clocks (such as CWF accession 1954-10006). The fifth features a richly ornamented hood with parapets and an overhanging cusp on the central plinth (now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). Clocks made in Liverpool and adjacent Lancashire appear to be the design source for the hood on the last clock and the shaped trunk doors on all five examples.

Like most of Walker's tall clock movements, this one generally resembles British work, but also displays a number of atypical, somewhat unrefined elements that are American. While the cast spandrels may be of British manufacture, the dial, with its many casting flaws and cast-in holes, is clearly an American and probably a Fredericksburg production. That Walker made rather than imported his tall clock movements is suggested by the important similarities between the two CWF tall clock movements (accession 1951-578). The pillars, hammers, and decoration on the back-cocks of each are identical, and the gathering pallets have unusually long tails. The click springs also mirror one another, an important point since they were invariably produced by the clockmaker, not purchased ready-made. Even the weight pulleys characterized by their long stirrups are the work of a single, probably local, artisan. The British character of Walker's work may reflect training in Great Britain or access to published British sources such as The Elements of Clock and Watch-Work, Adapted to Practice, written by Londoner Alexander Cummings in 1766.

If Walker's brass clock movements were made in Fredericksburg, they represent an important example of technological achievement in the preindustrial South, an area of study that has yet to receive the scholarly attention it deserves. Walker's notable engraving skills, most evident on a Walker bracket clock in the CWF collection (accession 1951-397) and several other examples, also contribute to a redefinition of the widely held perception that few skilled trade specialists worked in the late colonial South.

InscribedThe dial is engraved "Thomas Walker / FREDERICKSBURG." A repairer's mark, "J. H. Bates / Oct. 30, 1901," is penciled inside the trunk door.
ProvenanceAccording to family tradition, the clock was originally owned by the Fairfax family of northern Virginia and was given to a member of the Otterback family who worked as an overseer on one of their estates. Census records for Virginia place numerous members of the "Utterback" family in Culpeper and Fauquier Counties, where the Fairfax family had extensive land holdings. The clock descended through the Otterback family to Robert Otterback (d. 1937) of Prince William Co.; to his widow, Lillian Dunnington Otterback (d. 1961); to her niece, Mary Gapen Lanham; to her husband, C. T. Lanham; to his widow, Jane C. Lanham, who, with her stepdaughter, presented it to CWF in 1984.

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