ANTIQUE AMERICAN ANSONIA BRASS &COPPER CO STEEPLE CLOCK

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ANTIQUE AMERICAN ANSONIA BRASS & COPPER COMPANY STEEPLE CLOCK. 30HOUR TIME AND STRIKE MOVEMENT. PROFESSIONALLY CLEANED, OILED AND SET IN BEAT. THIS CLOCK IS VERY EARLY, CIRCA 1874. THE CLOCK IS LISTED IN TRAN DU LY'S ANSONIA BOOK ON PAGE 4440. THE 2004 PRICE LIST SHOWS A VALUE OF $275. THIS CLOCK HAS AN OUTSTANDING REVERSE PAINTED GLASS IN THE LOWER DOOR. THIS IS A GREAT CLOCK. CASE SIZE 19 1/2 X 11 X 4 1/2 THEANSONIA CLOCK COMPANY The Ansonia Clock Company was one of the major 19th century American clock manufacturers. It produced millions of clocks in the period between 1850, its year of incorporation, and 1929, the year the company went into receivership and sold its remaining assets to Soviet Russia. Here is a brief timeline describing the events leading to the formation of the Ansonia Clock Company and to its ultimate demise. 1844 - The Ansonia Brass Company is formed by Anson Green Phelps Although he became one of the great mercantile capitalists of his time, Anson G. Phelps had rather humble beginnings. Born to an old Connecticut family, he was orphaned at age ten, and soon after became a saddlemaker’s apprentice. He later moved to Hartford and went into business for himself as a merchant and a shrewd trader. He bartered saddles for cotton from South Carolina and then sold the cotton in New York. With the proceeds from the cotton sales he purchased dry goods to sell back in his Hartford store. At age 31 he moved to New York and joined forces with another Connecticut trader, Elisha Peck. As the firm of Phelps & Peck they exported Sourthern cotton to England and imported metals to New York in return, becoming New Yorks largest metal importer of the time. After his partnership with Peck dissolved, he formed the firm of Phelps, Dodge & Co. with two of his son-in-laws. Phelps, Dodge and Co. remained a leading New York metals importer. Located in southeastern Connecticut’s Naugatuck River Valley on the east bank of the river, nine miles from New Haven, the factory produced rolled brass for industrial uses. The city of Ansonia was originally part of a larger area called Derby. When the city was incorporated in 1889 it was named Ansonia in honor of Anson Phelps. 1850 - The Ansonia Clock Company is formed as a subsidiary of the Ansonia Brass Company by Phelps and two Bristol, Connecticut clockmakers, Theodore Terry and Franklin C. Andrews. By 1838, inexpensive clock movements made of rolled brass had largely replaced wooden and cast brass movements in America. Terry & Andrews were the largest clock manufacturers in Bristol at that time. They had more than 50 employees and had used 58 tons of brass in the production of about 25,000 clocks in the previous year. Phelps decided to get into the clockmaking business as a means to expand his market for his brass products. It was a shrewd business move for Phelps to join forces with Terry and Andrews, allowing him to profit from the manufacture of a clock’s raw components and the finished product as well. Terry and Andrews thought it was a good business decision for them as well, giving them ready access to large quantities of brass for use in clock movements. They agreed to sell Phelps a 50% interest in their clockmaking business and move the entire operation to Ansonia, CT, where Phelps had his brass mill. 1851 - 1852 Andrews leaves the business. In 1851 Andrews sells all but one of his shares. He sells his remaining share to Terry in 1852. 1853 Ansonia exhibits their cast iron cased clocks at the New York World's Fair. Only two other American clock companies exhibited at the fair, which opened on July 4, 1853. They were the Jerome Manufacturing Company of New Haven, Connecticut, and the Litchfield Manufacturing Company of Litchfield, Connecticut. 1853 - Anson Phelps, at age 73, sells his interest in the Ansonia Clock Company to his son-in-law, James B. Stokes. Stokes was one of the directors of the firm of Phelps, Dodge & Co., a metal importing company originally ... read more

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