Clarence Burnham Terry (1807–1876) received his instruction from his renowned clockmaker father, Eli Terry. Young S. B. Terry started his own company in Terrysville, Connecticut, in 1831. He produced weight-driven shelf and wall clocks under his own brand until 1852, albeit not without facing financial challenges, notably in the middle 1840s.
Undoubtedly in need of operational cash, Terry established S. B. Terry & Company in June 1852 with the help of a nephew and another cousin. When the Terryville Manufacturing Company was established, specifically to produce a torsion escapement clock for which Terry had been granted patents in 1852 and 1853, this company had only been in operation for approximately a year. S. B. Terry took over management of the new factory that had been erected about a mile to the south in Pequabuck, Connecticut, until the autumn of 1854, when he sold his share and went back to running his old shop.
When Silas B. Terry declared bankruptcy on January 1, 1859, his clock business and other assets were auctioned. He then relocated to Winsted, Connecticut, where he managed W. L. Gilbert & Company’s clock movement department for almost two years. Later, he relocated to Waterbury, Connecticut, where he worked in a comparable capacity for the Waterbury Clock Company.
The Terry Clock Company was established in 1867 by Silas B. Terry and his four sons in Waterbury, Connecticut, using a factory space rented from the American Flask & Cap Company. The company was founded in 1868 due to worries over Terry’s previous questionable financial performance.
The bulk of the clocks the Terry Clock Company manufactured before 1880 had cases made mostly of cast iron, coated black, and embellished to varying degrees by hand-striping and ornamentation. Terry was granted patents for fishing reels, which the company began producing in the 1870s, in addition to movement escapements and cast-iron case fronts.
Although the Terry Clock Company’s operations were reasonably profitable, the company never had enough operational cash and had an odd existence in which it borrowed money every year from one creditor to pay the previous one. The business was run by Silas B. Terry’s sons until his death from heart illness in 1876; nevertheless, in May of that year, the company filed for bankruptcy.
A group of Pittsfield, Massachusetts investors later bought the business, and it was transferred there with a steam-powered flour mill installed on the second level. On the Housatonic River, a brand-new, three-story structure was constructed for them in 1883. Three Terry brothers traveled to Pittsfield to run the business, and the Terry Clock Company name was kept. When the business collapsed in 1888, its creditors took control and changed the name to Russell & Jones Clock Company.