Nov 2007

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 128
Weather - Sunny, Cool, becoming overcast late
Camped - Rondout Coast to Coast, Accord, NY (in the Catskills).

Narrative:

Yesterday, when we were visiting the American Watch & Clock Museum in Bristol, CT - I was really struck with how beautiful it sounded when all the Grandfather ('Tall') clocks started chiming. I wanted to kick myself for not recording it. Since we had gone backwards a couple of miles to get to the Wal-mart last night, we started off this morning by driving right by the museum again. I decided to stop in and see if I could record the clocks chiming.

We got there a little late since we had some shopping to do first (those darn household chores). When I got there I explained what I wanted to do, they said they had a general policy to not allow video recording. However, the Director came out and discussed it with me and decided to allow me to record. Perhaps clock makers & museums are just a little ahead of everybody else?

This wasn't a straight forward operation, I went back to the room with most of the Grandfather clocks and set up my tripod & camera, when a man came in to explain that he had turned off most of the clocks so he could reset them for Daylight Savings Time. Clocks that aren't running don't chime - so there went my plan. However, he also said he had some work to do elsewhere and would be back in about 20 minutes to start turning them on again. OK, I could wait that long.

After 20 minutes, he started turning the clocks on and even set them so I could hear the chimes - but it was 11:30ish, so I was just getting the half hour chimes, and for only one clock at a time. These were nice, but not what I remembered from yesterday. Somewhat disappointed, I put my tripod, camera and laptop back in the RV and said "Thanks" to everyone and prepared to leave. Of course, by that time it was a quarter to twelve and I realized it was only another 15 minutes before the big chiming started at noon.

Being somewhat of the lazy type, I just grabbed the small camera (no tripod) and went back in to try to get the big show. Just before twelve, chimes started going off. Again, it was quite impressive and beautiful. I don't know that I did a very good job capturing it, but will upload the video and let you be the judge. Hopefully this will be done shortly, check back on yesterday's entry (Day 61) shortly.

So finally having captured some clock chimes, I was ready to hit the road again. We got back on the highways (as in Interstates) so we could move a little faster (as in South before winter hits). We almost made it to New York, when we saw a sign for the "Danbury Railway Museum". Being that this is a sightseeing trip - not just to travel, we gave in and pulled off.

This was built in 1903 and was getting a little old when in 1955, the town of Danbury suffered a terrible flood. The train depot was right next to the river that flooded, so the building was ruined. It was finally restored about 13 years ago with some help from the federal government. Now the museum is run by a group of volunteers who love trains and love sharing their 'hobby' with the rest of us. Here is a picture of what the train depot looked like before it was restored (Ugh!):

Carol, one of the volunteers, showed us around the museum inside the depot. It contains pictures showing some of the history of the railroad in Danbury and exhibits of various types of railroad equipment (click to enlarge or learn more):

There are also several model railroads of different scales. Here is a closeup of the roundhouse from the "N" scale model of 1950's Danbury railroad yard (pretty good detail work):

Dave was my tour guide for the outside portion of the museum. The railway yard has a very large collection of train engines, cars and various support equipment. Some have been restored, some not (if this bothers you, I'm sure they're always looking for volunteers!)

Here is a 1907 Steam Engine & Tender. I didn't know the water for the steam engine was carried in tanks built into the tender walls!

I also didn't know they made self-propelled train cars, sometimes called "Budds". This one was a 'combo' car as it had both dining and riding space, it wasn't terribly successful however as only two of these were every built. Some other self propelled cars did a little better.

In 1947, GM made this Diesel/Electric engine which they thought would be the 'engine of the future'. It may not have met their expectations as GM no longer makes railroad engines, but it was quite interesting. There are two 12-cylinder diesel engines mounted end to end, which turn generators that drive electric motors on the wheels. Together, the two diesel's produce 2,600 hp.

Here are two freight cars, both were received by the museum about the same time and same condition. One has been restored, the other - not yet:

Finally, here is a picture of a U.S. Post Office train car as it looked when the museum received it:

This is probably the exhibit Dave, my tour guide, was most proud of - and rightly so. This is the way the car looks today:

This was an actual working post office. For many small towns, the train didn't stop at all, it just slowed down to about 25 mph. If they had any mail to deliver to that town, they just pushed the appropriate mail sack off the train onto the platform. If the town had any outgoing mail, they hung it from a device so when the train approached, a worker could pull down on a wood handle to extend a hook and pick up the bag. Then the post office clerks sorted the mail on tables right in the car.

There were a lot more cars, engines, and support equipment at the museum. If you want to know more about it, let me know (I have more pictures I can upload of course), or check out their web site:

http://www.danbury.org/drm/

After climbing through all sorts of trains, I reluctantly got back on the road and somehow managed to make it to New York (OK, it was right across the river). I again took the wrong road and ended up driving through some very beautiful country. This is in the southern portion of the Catskill Mountains and obviously the trees have not lost all their color!

The Rondout RV Resort doesn't have very good internet, so I'm trying to catch up after the fact (hope my memory hasn't failed me completely). I'll try to finish yesterdays changes also, but am not sure I'll make it....

Summary: Writers Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom's Cabin) and Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, (Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn) were neighbors in Hartford, CT. We were able to tour both homes. About 15 miles to the west is the American Watch & Clock Museum in Briston, CT that we also toured.

Logistics: Miles Driven - 29, Weather - Overcast & Cool, but dry. Camped at Wal-mart in Bristol/Farmington area (the RV Campgrounds are all closed in this area now).

Details: What a difference a day makes! Yesterday at Old Mystic Seaport, I could take as many pictures as I wanted, and did. Today, two out of the three places we visited do not allow photography inside (the two historic homes in Hartford). If I can be allowed to digress for a moment, it would seem they might be missing an opportunity in the digital age? If my humble web log (e.g. blog) should inspire one to visit some of the places I've written about - which would be more tempting, to visit one they've seen lots of color photo's from or one with only dull text? Oh well, I do not make the policy.

In Concord, Massachusetts, we learned that the writers Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau and Alcott had all lived in the area and even known each other. A similar thing occured in Hartford, CT with Harriett Beecher Stowe and Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain).

Harriett Beecher Stowe actually wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1851 in Maine, but moved to Hartford in 1872 after she had achieved world fame. She was 62 at the time and lived in a relatively modest home with her husband and two daughters. It was in the finest neighborhood in Hartford and had some features most people of that era could only dream of (such as gas waterheaters for the bathtub & kitchen).

I really didn't know much about her except that she wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin". She actually wrote 30 books in total and also painted for a hobby. We also learned that while it is true that she had never travelled in the south or visited a plantation, she did know quite a bit about slavery and it's impact from living in Cincinnatti earlier with her father. Once she decided to write about slavery, she also did a lot of research on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Beecher_Stowe

The house tour was quite interesting, but without photo's there probably isn't too much to describe. The Stowe's moved to the new house in Hartford in 1873, a year before Samual Clemen's and his family moved next door. The original house was sold after her death in1896. The museum has been able to obtain many objects from later generations or art auctions, but many of the items in the house are 'period' (antiques from the correct era, but not necessarily things from when she lived there).

While the Stowes and Clemen's were neighbors and did spend time together, they were different generations. Harriet Beecher Stowe was 62 when she moved into the new home in Harford, Samuel Clemens was 39.

Samuel Clemens took the name Mark Twain as his pen name. He was born relatively poor and had a difficult, but adventurous youth. However his wife was from a wealthier family and she inherited a substantial amount of money, which they used to purchase this home in Hartford.

The security guard's name is Robert. I went back to the RV after Mom, and when I got back he was standing by the door talking to Mom. I saw the uniform and immediately thought 'Oh No, What did I do now?' - fearing some sort of parking violation. However he had just seen our travel map on the side of the RV and was curious about our trip!

Back to work however (writing the blog that is), the Clemens house is much larger and fancier than the Stowe's house. Sam Clemens was not a famous author when they moved in, but wrote most of his best known works while living there. His study was on the third floor by the round balcony. While I couldn't take pictures inside, the website for the museum does have some pictures and additional information:

http://www.marktwainhouse.org/thehouse/index.shtml

So having successfully visited two of our three objectives for today, we bravely set off for the third. The town of Bristol is only 15 miles from Hartford, but having experienced the freeway's in Harford first hand last night (ugly), I decided not to brave them again on my own and fired up the GPS software. I typed in the address of the "American Watch & Clock" museum that looked interesting in the brochures. Except for one minor "East" vs "West" error, the software got us out of Hartford and to the museum without too much difficulty.

This place did allow me to take pictures, so maybe I can share this with you a little more effectively! The outside of the building is rather plain by today's standards, so we drove right by it and had to circle around the block. That's probably because it was built in 1801 - so the building is impressive even if it doesn't look like it.

Inside we met Judy who was very nice. She signed us in and got us started on our tour and provided a lot more information about the background of the museum.

The museum was started by Edward Ingraham in 1952. He was the great grandson of Elias Ingraham, one of the original clock makers in Connecticut. Edward Ingraham had been collecting clocks most of his life, and donated his entire collection of 350 clocks to help get the museum started. While he retired from the Ingraham clock factory in 1955, he continued to work in the museum until he passed away in 1972.

The first room we toured is called "The Gateway". It has several exhibits showing how Clock making in Connecticut was transformed from a piecework industry to perhaps the first example of mass production in America. Eli Terry began making clocks in 1795 the same way everyone else did, by hand, one at a time or in small batches. His idea was to stamp out the gears and parts needed so every clock could essentially use the same parts. (There had been two other earlier advocates of interchangeable parts, one in Sweden and one in France, but the museum contends that Eli Terry is the first to do this in America. Eli Whitney gets credit for it and he was later a big advocate of interchangeable parts, but he didn't actually start using this process until later.) Terry continued to improve his manufacturing process. In 1802, he could only churn out about 200 clocks a year. By 1809, his factory was producing about 2,000 per year. He was a also a pioneer in developing methods so unskilled workers could assemble his clocks rather than having highly skilled craftsmen assemble everything - driving the prices down so more people could afford clocks.

Here is a picture of Eli Terry and what his clock assembly workshop might have looked when he first switched to mass production as well as his gear stamping machine (click to enlarge):

The museum's exhibits about the development of mass production of clocks are very informative. One of their signs reads:

"In 1800 practically nothing made in America was mass produced. By 1900 however, nearly everything was factory produced."

In addition to figuring out how to produce affordable clocks, Eli Terry had to figure out how to get them to customers. He decided to use "Yankee Peddlers", who would take a wagon from town to town, put up signs, and sell clocks. Notice the packing box in the right front - several clocks could be loaded in it for safe transport.

In addition to the multimedia presentations on how mass production first got started, there is a display of some of the clock components that were eventually 'outsourced', an early example of manufacturing methods we almost take for granted today.

The shift to mass production was not without problems of course. In 1880, workers were paid between $1.25 and $1.50 per day for a 10 hour workday, six days a week. Low pay and poor working conditions led the first labor strike in Bristol at the E. Ingraham Company clock shop in 1889.

After learning more about the emergance of the affordable clock and mass production in general, I headed to the basement where there are more exhibits. In the hall & stairwell to the basement exhibits is a two story clock. I had to take two photographs to show it, since the face is on one side, but the mechanics are below and on the back side...

In the basement, we saw a clock with two dials on it - one for local time, the other for 'Railroad' time. Prior to the railroads, most towns measured time based on their own latitude. So the time in one town could be 8 minutes faster than the next, etc. This didn't work too well for the railroads, so in 1883 they started using a single time for a region - 'standard' time zones. Although towns at first resisted, within 10 years just about everybody had switched to using standard time zones.

There are several more rooms with all sorts of displays. Here are just a few examples:

My favorite room in the museum had to be the back room upstairs however. What really makes it special is all the 'grandfather' or Tall Clocks it contains.

Many of them are in working order. Paul was there to wind them and reset the time for the end of daylight savings time. He was kind enough to stand by the tallest 'longcase' clock in the museum, it is 10 feet tall! Also, I couldn't resist a look at the tools of his trade. These were next to a table set up specifically so you could touch and play with clock type things (a 'hands on' exhibit).

They keep them set a few minutes apart so when they start chiming, they don't all go off at the same time. I think this makes it even nicer, since the chimes last longer that way - if you ever get a chance, just sit here around noon sometime and enjoy the most beautiful sound! I confess - I do have video editing software now, and even installed it this morning - but haven't had time to use it yet. Will try to replace later with an edited version when I can. In the meantime, give it a couple of minutes - it take takes a bit before they all start kicking in...

In case you want to know the 'real' story, it's probably better to check their web site anyway:

http://www.clockmuseum.org/

Tommorrow we'll start heading south again - not sure which route we'll take, but we don't have any plans or objectives for tomorrow yet so we 'll keep our eyes open.

ps - Longcase or Tall Clocks only became known as 'Grandfather' Clocks in the early 1900's after publication of the song, "My Grandfather's Clock". I found several video's on YouTube, here is one by Ken Hirai if you'd like to hear it: