Maine Antique Digest April 2015

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Maine Antique Digest, April 2015 3-D
- FEATURE -
The last of the old-time Amer-
ican clock companies, the
Chelsea Clock Company
of Chelsea, Massachusetts—a
heavily industrialized little city
just across the Mystic River from
Boston—is moving. Its new home
is well within walking distance
of what soon will be its former
address—a three-story brick fac-
tory at 284 Everett Avenue that
was built by Joseph H. Eastman
in the mid-1890s—but the move
still feels momentous to those
who take pride in the long history
of the firm.
Perhaps no one has followed
that history more closely than
Andrew and David Demeter. In
fact, they wrote it. Their definitive
book, Chelsea Clock Company:
The First Hundred Years, was
self-published in 2003 in an edi-
tion of 1000. It was sold out in less
than three years and now sells on
eBay for an average price of $250.
(The original price was $68.50.)
Coincidental to the upcoming
move, 1000 copies of a second,
updated, and expanded edition of
the book have been issued by the
father-son team. In preparation,
the Demeters reexamined the fac-
tory’s records at a deeper level,
unearthed more historical facts,
gathered more photographs for
illustrations, and discovered tech-
nical details not previously pub-
lished by them or anyone.
They also hired a professional
design team to execute their ideas,
and it paid off. “I think by defini-
tion a ‘second’ edition should be
a better product than the first edi-
tion,” Andy Demeter said. “Other-
wise, I guess it would be called a
reprint.”
About 25 years ago, vintage
Chelsea clocks became highly
collectible. The company contin-
ues to make new clocks, includ-
ing its most famous product—the
Chelsea ship’s bell clock—but
80% have quartz movements.
Mechanical models from the
early to mid-20th century are the
ones that enthusiasts covet, and
the company still has an active
repair-and-restoration department
for them.
New to the second edition are
many more pages of material
designed to assist collectors, deal-
ers, horologists, and other Chel-
sea enthusiasts in identifying and
learning about the older models.
Most impressive are the individual
indices that list every clock that
Chelsea made for the U.S. Light-
house Establishment & Service,
U.S. Life-Saving Service, and
U.S. Revenue Cutter Service—by
serial number, type, and date of
issuance. This feature is the result
of a year’s labor. That’s how long
it took the authors to review over
260,000 individual entries in the
factory sales ledgers from 1897,
when the company was founded,
through 1941.
In addition, ten vintage models
have been added to the first edi-
tion’s identification guide, along
with color photographs from the
best private collections. There
is also an alphabetical listing of
every movement model devel-
oped by the company. This list
complements the manufacturing
serial number index that was in
the first edition. Finally, there is
a new index of clocks from Chel-
sea’s subsidiary, the Boston Clock
Company, in existence from 1909
to 1931.
Please note that there have been
at least two other companies that
went by the name Boston Clock
Company. One of them, founded
by Joseph H. Eastman, was in
existence from 1884 to 1895. (Just
to confuse matters, it had a pre-
vious name, from 1880 to 1884,
which was the Harvard Clock
Company.) The Everett Avenue
factory in Chelsea was built for
and housed Eastman’s Boston
Clock Company. When it failed,
he formed the short-lived (1895-
97) Eastman Clock Company, the
Chelsea Clock Company’s imme-
diate precursor.
The Chelsea Clock Company
proper was founded in 1897 by
Charles Pearson, who owned the
business until its sale to a Chelsea
employee, William H. Neagle, in
1929. Neagle took it through the
Depression, then switched almost
exclusively to war work when
World War II was declared. Chel-
sea soon became the primary sup-
plier of clocks to the U.S. Navy.
Subsequently, the company name
grew to be synonymous with
“marine clock,” even though
most Chelsea clocks did not go to
sea and were never meant to. Its
familiar yacht-wheel clocks were
designed as mantel pieces, and
Chelsea over the years has made
many other types of timepieces for
landlubbers’ homes, offices, and
automobiles.
After Neagle retired in 1945,
he sold the company to Chelsea
employees George J. King and
Walter E. Mutz. They introduced
electric Chelseas to consumers.
King and Mutz sold the company
in 1970 to a California-based
defense conglomerate, Automa-
tion Industries. Two years later,
Automation Industries sold it to
the Bunker Ramo Corporation of
Chicago for $650,000. In 1978,
Bunker Ramo agreed to sell it
to Richard “Rick” Leavitt for
$800,000. Leavitt operated it as
the Chelsea Instrument Corpora-
tion, introducing the quartz move-
ments in 1984.
In 2005, Leavitt sold the com-
pany’s assets and its name to
JK Nicholas of Concord, Mas-
sachusetts, for an undisclosed
sum. Nicholas was previously a
business-strategy consultant to
companies in the Boston area
and an entrepreneur. In a fore-
word to the Demeters’ second
edition, he writes that he him-
self is a longtime collector of
vintage Chelsea clocks, having
been given his first one, a U.S.
Navy model, by his father when
he was a boy. (The elder Nicho-
las is Peter Nicholas, cofounder
of the medical-device company
Boston Scientific.) In that same
essay he recounts that his pater-
nal grandfather served as a cap-
tain in the U.S. Navy aboard
several submarines and that he
grew up hearing stories of the
heroism and courage of those
who served under the man.
“Of course, I could envision...
A New Location for Chelsea
Clock Company and a Second
Edition of Its History
by Jeanne Schinto
One of the new photographs in the second
edition of the Demeters’ book is a vintage
image showing Joseph H. Eastman (1843-
1931), founder of the Chelsea Clock Com-
pany’s immediate precursor, the Eastman
Clock Company. Eastman,
who trained as a watch-
maker as well as a clock-
maker, fitted his clock
movement with a watch
escapement. That innova-
tion was the key to Chel-
sea’s (if not Eastman’s)
success, since it gave those
novel timekeepers both
accuracy and the porta-
bility that the absence of a
pendulum allowed. Photo
courtesy Jim Dyson.
Captain Nicholas looking up at his Chelsea
while somewhere deep under the sea,” writes
the grandson, whose cell phone ring is a sub-
marine sonar ping, “and so began my fascina-
tion with these elegant, amazing instruments
made in Chelsea, Massachusetts.”
When Nicholas took over Chelsea ten years ago,
Leavitt retained ownership of the building and
leased it to Nicholas for a decade. Nicholas said
Leavitt sold it about five years ago to an entity that
was “hoping to develop the whole area around the
building.” As part of that plan, when the lease was
up, “We were asked to leave.” Figuratively speak-
ing, time at the old place had run out.
Finding a new place in Chelsea was “a very
strong desire,” Nicholas told M.A.D. He did look
outside the area, but “only because we had to,”
since nothing appropriate seemed to be available
in Chelsea. He said he considers it lucky that an
opportunity to lease the building in the new loca-
tion came along. When that happened, he said,
“Regret shifted to excitement.”
Formerly used as a nail factory and later a
clothing factory, the new place, like the old one,
is more than 100 years old, but Nicholas antic-
ipates that it will allow the company to operate
in a much more efficient, 21st-century manner.
The addition of a new stairwell and elevator,
for example, will accommodate, in Nicholas’s
words, “modern-day ways of moving things and
people up and down.”
For more information, contact Chelsea Clock
Company by phone at (617) 884-0250 or through
its Web site ).
To order the second edition of Chelsea Clock
Company: The First Hundred Years, e-mail
> or send a check
toAndrew Demeter, 4 Great Hill Lane, Topsfield,
MA01983. The price is $128.50, including USPS
priority flat rate shipping with tracking number
and insurance. Payment can also be made via
PayPal to >.
Dust jacket of Chelsea Clock Company: The First Hundred
Years (second edition). Just like the first edition, the book
illustrates dozens of vintage Chelsea models, along with
detailed information about them, including their special
features, variations, and original price. There are also pages
of serial numbers from which can be determined when—
down to the exact day—that many Chelsea models were
manufactured.
New home of Chelsea Clock Company, 101 Second Street, Chelsea, Massa-
chusetts. Schinto photo.
A new stairwell and eleva-
tor were still under con-
struction when this photo
was taken on Thanksgiving
Day 2014. Schinto photo.