Reminiscences of an Apprentice, "Our Watchmaker"

From The American Horologist magazine, January, 1942

Reminiscences of an Apprentice

"Our Watchmaker"

Submitted by W. H. SAMELIUS

Our watchmaker was a few years older than I was.  He had partly learned his trade in a neighboring town, and after he went to New York for a couple of years and returned with the concentrated essence of all the knowledge that exists and that great center of skill and experience. He knew the way to do everything and there was nothing he did not understand. Anyone of the innumerable descriptions of clocks and watches were all the same to him, and he was equally skillful in jewelry and silverware. As a general thing, the young men of our town were jealous of him after he came back and blamed him for "spreading himself out", "putting on airs", etc., but I noticed some of my companions' who had been to cities not half as big as New York, came back aand put on airs too and surely, our watchmaker had the right to spread himself out farther, seeing New York a far larger city and he was the longest away from home.  People were fond of telling a story about him, although I never believed it, that when he arrived home from New York, he asked the porter at the railway station the way to his mother's house; but you see, people in country towns are so ready to make remarks about people better than themselves. Supposing the story is true, however, was it any wonder, one being in New York so long, and learning so much, should forget all about the streets of our little insignificant town? Some incredulous persons may think that a head containing all the knowledge he possessed. might burst, and so it might, only that his mouth and tongue acted as a safety valve and prevented any such catastrophe. I always considered our boss to be a clever man, but I thought our watchmaker to be far greater because he had been to New York and talked a great deal about it, while our boss had never been there and could not talk so much. When the two got into any little argument about the work that was being done, as sometimes they did, our watchmaker would invariably silence our boss by telling him that was the way we did it in New York; but although silenced, our boss would shake his head, smile and insist on having it done his way, the same as he did with me, which I thought was presumptuous on his part.

Our watchmaker did not make his drills or sharpen them as well as I could, but then I thought, that in such a great place as New York, they might have some ways of making holes without drills, which might account for his making bad ones. I also noticed his gravers neither were so evenly ground or whetted as mine or my bosses were; but I tried to explain in my own mind, that in New York, they kept a man for the purpose of sharpening gravers, which would account for our watchmakers want of experience in this particular field. The pins that he made were neither one sharp or the other, but I did not think much about that because it could not be expected that a man who had been to New York would condescend to be particular with such a trifling little thing as a pin. Our boss sometimes spoke to him about the condition of the points of his screwdriver, that they bruised the heads of all the screws in the watches; but I thought it mean of our boss to grumble so much about so common a thing as the point of a screwdriver, which I did think was altogether below the dignity of a man who had been two years in New York. And why should he not have trade secrets after being in the city?  He would not tell any of them to our boss and it could not be expected he should either; but he often promised to tell me something if I would do certain things for him and in this way he would get me to do a great many things I had no business to do. When he told me any secrets, it was always something our boss had told me before or something I knew without any body telling me; but then I was too young to be able to understand the big secrets and I wafted patiently until I should get older.

If our boss was home for a day or two, our watchmaker usually attended to the customers and on these occasions he fairly teemed with New York fashions and styles in jewelry; and if that had not the desired effect on the customer he treated them bountifully with selections from his stock of Cockney phrases. Some of the customers were perfectly delighted with the clever young man and thought he ought to have a shop of his own, and thought our boss was an old fogey. Other customers, again, if they could not wait until our boss came home, would transact their business with me. Our watchmaker did not like this and told our boss that I was not polite with the customers; but it was only because I would not tell lies and say the things all came from New York, when I knew very well many of them were made in our own shop, and I also knew that our boss always wanted me to tell the truth. One day, however, I got square with our watchmaker and I kept myself square with him ever after. He was putting a watch together and asked me to hand him a bottle of mucilage. I got the mucilage for him and I wanted to see what he was going to do with it when putting a watch together, but he turned his back and told me to go away, that I would find out soon enough; so I went away, thinking it might be some of his big secrets that I was too young to comprehend. Some way or other, however, I looked over his shoulder and saw him fastening in a screw with mucilage that had overturned with him when putting the watch together. "Oh," says I, "Is that the way you used to do it in New York?" and I quite innocently remarked that when a screw overturned with the boss, he always made a new one. He was awful mad at my seeing him and got up and chased me around the benches with a large stick until I promised not to tell the boss when he came home; and as I never had any intention of telling, I consented to his proposition on the condition that he would never tell anything more about me and the bargain was closed to the satisfaction of both of us.

Our watchmaker had the most profound contempt for books and magazines on any subject connected with the trade. He made it a point never to believe anything about the business that he saw in print. Cumming's Elements were all nonsense, Reid's Treatise made him go to sleep; and for Berthoud and Jurgensen's works, they were only foreign gibberish. All the old works were antiquated, and no modern workman could derive any benefit from them; and as for new publications, they were nothing but humbug, and he knew it, for had he not been two years in New York.  What more was necessary for him to be a judge? A friend sent him some of the early numbers of the New York Horological Journal regularly, but, although it came from New York, he never read a word of it, but our boss always read it through and through when he could get a copy, and I liked to read it too; but here I must remark that neither our boss nor I had been to New York, which may account for us having the desire to read the Journal. I have seen our watchmaker tear it up and use it as wrapping paper, just to show how little he required the teachings of any journal or book connected with the trade. I remember a man used to come around at times to take orders for a trade journal that was in the course of publication. He always happened to call when our boss was out, or I think he would have subscribed. I liked to glance over the sample copies and I wished I had enough money to be a subscriber, for I saw many things of interest to me, but our watchmaker was far sharper than I was and was not to be imposed upon so easily. He flung the publication at the man and said it was nothing but an advertising dodge; that in New York, the wholesale watch dealers gave away illustrated catalogs which contained more information than the publication did, and gave them for nothing; so you will observe, nobody could impose on our watchmaker, he was very sharp and clever.

There was a half-pay army officer, a resident of our town, who had great proclivities for science, and a weakness for using high language.  He never would call a spade a spade, or his watch a watch, his watch was a "Horologium" and some times he would come into the shop to get the "horologer" to eradicate the defects of his Horologium. About the time of one of his visits, one of our townsmen had taken out a patent on an improvement on frictional gearing and it was the general subject of conversation in our town at that time.  Our boss remarked he was always under the impression that friction was not caused by the extent of the rubbing surfaces, but by the pressure that was upon them; but in this frictional gearing the surfaces were made large, apparently to create friction and thus prevent the wheels from slipping; so our boss asked the learned visitor how the theory that there was the same amount of friction in a narrow surface as in a broad one could be reconciled with the results obtained by the experiments made to establish the efficiency of frictional gearing. Our learned visitor replied that the reconciliation of the theory in the one instance, and the practice in the other, were exceedingly simple; and went on to explain that "in applicate mechanics two quiescent discs with their periphery free from abrasion or dentations, contrary to the usual practice of horologists and other mechanicians, had a reduplication of circumferential potent energy imparted to them as homogeneous solids moving around a permanent axis, not by pressure alone, but also by the cohesion of the molecules of matter that constituted the periphery of the once quiescent discs; and that the line of pressure, being toward the center, directs these aggregate combinations of force into a polygon, which finally collapsed, and the tangible forces, rushing off ,at a tangent, imparted motion to the material discs or wheels, the velocity ration of which was equal to the quintessence of the aliquot part of the circumference of the discs, if no unguent be used."

Our boss, after this volley of science, was perfectly stunned, his glasses fell from his eyes, he gasped for breath and could not utter a word in reply but; our watchmaker was quite unconcerned, and thought the explanation a clear one; but that while he could never believe that there was the same amount of friction on the narrow surface as on a broad one, still, there could be nothing plainer than that when the polygon burst, the force flew off at a tangent, and gave motion to the wheels. In fact, when he was in New York, he had often seen the same thing himself. That day the old scientific gentleman went away proud that his own learning had been appreciated, and happy that our town possessed such an intelligent young man.

It is to be regretted that too much pretentious New York knowledge and too much science at one time, squelched our boss, nevertheless, it is to be hoped that his practical experience on friction will be made public on some future occasions.