Footnotes

• The present clock is an example of Shelley's D.1 model that was produced until about 1847.
  
  
  Aaron Dodd Crane (1804 – 1860) was born on the family farm in West Caldwell New Jersey and by all accounts was a self taught inventor. He received his first clock patent at the age of 25 and for the rest of his life remained an innovator whose ideas were far from the mainstream of conventional clockmaking. Never a commercial success, Crane continued to make clocks based on his torsion pendulum which was produced in several forms. The present example followed models using single, then triple ball pendulums. He understood the effect of temperature on his pendulum and attempted in this early model D to compensate by suspending the balls from bi metallic strips to alter their radius of rotation without great success. The clock is also notable for the use of a fusee, rarely seen in American clocks as well as striking work and an escapement of his own design. By the 1850's he had removed to Boston where he made a small number of elaborate gilt brass year going astronomical clocks whose pendulum resembled a carousel. Although Crane left no personal reminiscence, his life and work has been documented in the works listed below.
  
  
  Literature:
  Shelley, Frederick. Aaron Dodd Crane – An American Original, NAWCC Bulletin Supplement (1987)
  
  Drost, William. Clocks and Watches of New Jersey, Elizabeth (1966)
  

Category: Clocks and Watches / Watches