Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1876 — Ah Old Clock. [ARTICLE]

Ah Old Clock.

There is no piece of machinery with which civilized man is better acquainted in these days than the clock. Time was, before the cheapening, enterprising Yankee age, when that teller of the dropping hours Was a tradition, except in the bottees of the wealthy; and even they, the favored few, were only able to treat themselves to “ horologues,” as a general rule, after the year 1600 Anno Domini. The pendulum was the first application to popularize clocks, and it is not yet 800 yearfe ago that Galileo sat in church and caught the inspiration of the swinginglamp. It was in 1582, just a century before the death of the man who brought the first pendulum clock to America; and that clock, one of the first of the kind ever constructed, is ticking away to-day in Brooklyn, keeping' accurate time and claiming no small meed of admiration from the curious and venerating throng who know of its existence. Only nineteen years after the coming of the Pilgrim Fathers there landed on these shores Rev. Obadiah Holmes, and with him came this relic of the olden time. It was set up in his home in Salem in the year of grace 1686, and tor eleven years its silvery bell punctuated the stem days, and doubtless lent many a pointed warning to emphasize the pastor’B Sabbath speech. Into its homely face looked the dimming eyes of aged pioneers to whom its tick told of the longed-for rest; the young folks, anticipating, even within the rigid hounds of Puritanical rule, the independence and enjoyment of maturer years, thought it all tooslow in registering the*flight of time; the men and women of middle life squared, their, actio.as in accordance with its admonitions, it counted the long years of thetcofcmieg, of the Revolution, of the priinitivfe timeof the Republic. Then it ifelluinto,.desuetude, broke up almost like the yearfe that had faded; was rescued, revived, aid accorded the place of honor such long and foithful service demanded. This ancient timepiece is one of the attractions of the Long Island Historical Society’s rooms, having been presented to - tM»aociety by John Holmes Baker, Esq., a descendant of the reverend gentleman whose memory it serves to keep green. It bears the marks not only of age but of substantial workmanship, houest selection .of adequate material, and skillful care in construction and adjustment. It is one of those old-fashioned affairs that preceded the shelf-dock—built to stand in the corner of the best room, and fitted with great weights and powerful ma-

chinery, that rung an alarum loud enough to wake the seven sleepers. Those were busy days when the first sound slumber settled the question of rest; no napping in the morning, or piecing with early sunshine the wasted hours of evening, was allowed. The fisce is of brass, ana bears the maker’s name—” W. Tomlinson,” the prolonged right-band strdko of the “W” serving as a top to the “ X.” At each corner of the dial-square is introduced a cast-brass ornament, in the shape of one of those exaggerated plum-pudding-lpok-ing crowns of old monarchical regard, the same being borne by two little angels aided in their arduous task by scepters, fleur-de-lis, tba Lancaa trlan rose, and other loyal-like symbols. Capping the numeral six is an opening about an inch square, In which appears the day of the mouth—such vanities as month, year, ago of the moon, aud kindred chronological eccentricities of calendars, being ignored. Inside the glass which fbrms the dopr of the lower Sortlon of the case is a chrd bearing the onation and a brief rescript of the clofck’s history. On the dial each Roman numeral beam its minutial equivalent in Arabic characters over it. Through the lower glass are seen the original weights, pendulum, and bob, that came over to the colony from London.— Appletom' Journal.