Clockmaker Hiram Camp and colleagues established the New Haven Clock Company on February 7, 1853, with the goal of supplying clock movements to the Jerome Manufacturing Company, which at the time was the biggest clock manufacturer in the world. When the Jerome company filed for bankruptcy three years later, the New Haven Clock Company raised an extra $20,000 and bought the Jerome business in April of 1856.
The company had 300 men and 15 women working there in 1860, and it was turning out 170,000 clocks annually. The ancient Jerome plant was destroyed by fire in 1866, but a new brick factory was quickly constructed and is still operating today with several extensions. By 1880, their workforce had grown to 460 men, 52 women, and 88 children, and they produced clocks valued at about a million dollars that year. In that year, non-jeweled pocket watches were added to the lineup and continued to be sold until the 1950s.
Jerome & Company Ltd., an English sales company that carried on operations on its own following the bankruptcy of the Jerome Manufacturing Company in 1856, has economic ties to New Haven. The company began utilizing the brand *Jerome & Co. in the 1870s and acquired the full English business in 1904.
The New Haven operation’s directors had been sapping the company’s resources for years by paying out enormous dividends, and by 1890 they were in dire financial straits. Hiram Camp (1811–1892), the company’s founder and longtime president, stepped down in September 1891, and Samuel A. Galpin found it difficult to keep the business solvent. In 1894, they were on the verge of filing for bankruptcy, but they managed to acquire enough cash to last until the business was reformed in March of that year.
Walter C. Camp, who is better regarded as the “father of American football,” assumed control of the company in 1902. Camp did, however, upgrade the watchmaking division in 1904, which reduced production costs, and introduced wrist watches to the line in 1915. Edwin P. Root replaced Camp in 1923.
In February 1929, Richard H. Whitehead succeeded Root as the company’s president, but the situation was already precarious. This got worse when the Great Depression struck in November of that year, but Whitehead’s skillful management managed to keep the business running with increasing profitability during World War II. From 1943 through 1945, the company’s production of war goods accounted for practically all of its activities.
The company was reformed as the New Haven Clock and Watch Company in March 1946, and clock and watch manufacturing was resumed. In that year, it was taken over by foreign investors with ties to the Swiss watch industry. Following Whitehead’s resignation as president, the company’s condition progressively got worse. It was reformed in 1956 under Chapter X of the Bankruptcy Act, and in 1960 the business discontinued operations. On March 22–24, 1960, the clock manufacturing facilities were sold at public auction and through private negotiation.