The New Haven Clock Company

The New Haven Clock Company was founded on February 7, 1853 by Hiram Camp. The company supplied clock movements to the Jerome Manufacturing Company. Jerome went bankrupt three years later but the company purchased Jerome Manufacturing with $20,000 dollars. By 1860, the company employed 315 people and produced 170,000 clocks that year. In 1866, Jerome Factory burned down but a new factory was built employing 512 men and women and 88 children. By 1880, they produced nearly a million dollars worth of clocks. From 1880 until 1950, New Haven Clock Company offered non-jeweled pocket watches. In 1891, President Hiram Camp resigned and Samuel Galpin took over. The company nearly went bankrupt in 1894 but enough money was raised to continue until March 1897 when the company reorganized. In 1902, the company was modernized and watches were produced more cheaply under the leadership of Walter C. Camp. In 1923, Edwin P. Root took the helm and in March 1946, “the firm resumed clock and watch manufacture and was reorganized as the New Haven Clock and Watch Company”. In 1956, the company reorganized under Chapter X of bankruptcy and on March 22 through the 24th of 1960, the company was sold at a public auction. In February 1929, financial trouble came again under the leadership of Richard H. Whitehead as president. Although the Depression was intensifying, Whitehead was able to keep the company and earnings growing until World War II. Between 1943 and 1945, the company was only producing products for the war.