204. $500
E. W. Adams Patent Eight Day Brass Clock, 1836–1837. Adams
worked with Chauncey Marshall in Seneca Falls, NY from 1834 to 1836, when he bought out Marshall. Adams went broke the
next year and left town under suspicious circumstances, loading his remaining stock and equipment onto a flat boat and heading down
the Seneca River, eventually ending up in Chillicothe OH. This Empire case is 38 inches tall with flame mahogany veneer
and flame mahogany full columns on each side. The case has been refinished. Only the lower door glass is original, with
a repainted curtain tablet typical of Adams. The wooden dial is clean with an opening to view the brass movement; I don’t believe
it ever had a pull-up mirror behind it and, based on the fit, may not be original to this clock. The hands are old and possibly
original. The strap-brass 8-day, time-and-strike movement is unsigned; it is running and striking as expected, driven by two
8-day iron weights and regulated by an embossed pendulum bob. There is a black & white lithograph print on the backwall
of a child on the back of a large dog, with a sabre drawn, entitled “The Young Cavalier”. As I have noted previously, this appears
to be a play on a popular contemporary Nathanial Currier lithograph of a child wearing a cavalier’s hat and drawing a sword
from her belt. Above the image is the maker’s label. AAC sold a similar example in 2023 for $825. $500–$800.
Antique American Clocks JANUARY 2025