My Column From Newburyport News
Colonial
families handed down trades through the generations. The Blaisdells (See Genealogy by S Klomps below) of
Amesbury perfected clock making and the Noyses of Newbury mastered comb
manufacturing. They would be among the many ingenious families who would
help establish Essex County as the center of industry. Even more
fascinating, generational expertise was not limited to one profession,
as most “readily turned a hand at any business,” resulting in great
success.
Amesbury
historian Steven Klomps asserts that the Blaisdells were the first
American-born clock makers. David Sr. was a “mechanical genius” and made
his first clock in 1735.
David
hitched up with Abigail Colby and lived on Main Street in a house that
is now the Bartlett Museum. The couple had four sons who became master
clock makers.
David
conducted business from Kendrick’s Lane in the front yard of his Uncle
Charles’ home and “never was there a more industrious or useful man
seldom found.” His talents went beyond clocks. He “repaired augers,
andirons, steelyards, gunlocks, tin and brass ware, shod horses, and
forged iron work for vessels.” He also “sold groceries, dry goods, meat,
wood, and operated a cider mill.”
The
town voted to give David the meeting house bell that historians
conclude he used for casting clock bells. The clocks are still ticking
today and the fine craftsmanship and quality come through the brass and pewter dials. There are 20 clocks on record made by him.
Newbury’s Daniel Balch, another instrumental clock maker, apprenticed under David.
In
1755 David was commissioned to Fort Ticonderoga to make armor. He
brought his 14-year-old son Isaac to apprentice under him.
Unfortunately, he was killed in battle, but Isaac returned home to work
with David Jr. and Uncle Obadiah Colby. Isaac settled Chester, N.H.,
earning a fine reputation as a silversmith and clockmaker.
Gary Sullivan of “PBS Antiques Road Show” states that David Jr. took over
the business in 1756. David’s contribution to the clock world was
mastering the sophisticated eight-day brass, time and strike movement,
rather than the standard 30-hour lantern one. A clock sold at auction
made in 1750 is easily identified because of its unusual features,
namely the unique heart shaped cut-outs in the sides of hood carved to amplify
the loud bells strike.
In
1777, Salisbury made history when the frigate Alliance was forged by
the Hackett family. Klomps notes that David’s talent as a blacksmith was
utilized in the enterprise. An impressive account is listed in the
records of Timothy Cushing.
According
to Sullivan, clocks produced by son Nicholas are among the rarest by
any Blaisdell clan member. A tall clock made in 1760 is one of the most
important examples of Colonial clock making and only two others like it
have been documented. The clock, Sullivan notes, has “a rare sarcophagus
top and a fine early painted surface,” and “is in almost a perfect
state of preservation.”
In
Newbury, the Noyeses were busy crafting another trade. Enoch Noyes, or
“Old Fact,” as the natives called him, was a self-taught mechanical
genius. It is often said, “a man’s home is his castle,” but for this
man, it was a breeding ground for inventiveness. He owned the largest
library around, first to import fruit trees, bred varieties of fish and
issued the first comb industry in America (1759).
All
the labor was done by hand and he straightened the horns used for
combsby steaming them over his kitchen fire, pressing them in a cleft
leg, opening it with wedges and allowing it to spring together.
A
1925 article, “Sesquicentennial of Comb Industry,” noted 32 comb shops
in town between 1830 and 1840 with several Noyes offspring constantly
inventing and improving the production. The foremost was grandson David
Noyes, who invented a machine for twining, or cutting the teeth. He was
the most important man in comb-making in America. By 1844 S. C. Noyes
& Co. ruled the industry with the first steam-engine used in the
town.
Horatio
Noyes notes that Enoch’s eccentric nature matched his talents: “a great
joker and capital storyteller, often running to the parish barefooted
and bareheaded.” On hot summer days he was spotted sporting only his
light britches running the fields “just to go a nooning.”
O
ne
thing is for sure: These fellows were a “marvel of Yankee ingenuity,”
constantly combing new territory for inventions and never squandered
time.
See Clipper Heritage Trail
Comb-Makers Davis F., William, and William H. Noyes. Courtesy of the Newburyport Public Library Archival Center
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Clock above with pewter dial bears the label of David Blaisdell of Amesbury, 1744
Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Volumes 12-14
Two hundred years of American clocks & watches C H Bailey
Also see See Simon Willard
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