Lot Essay
'My brother and I were successful in our business transactions...We carried on clock-making together about twenty-one years. Our names may now be seen on the faces of many time-keepers, standing in the corners of sitting-rooms in houses situated in all the New England States....' So wrote clock-maker and silversmith Levi Hutchins whose name and that of his brother Abel, are engraved on the face of this tall-case clock (Packard, 'When New Hampshire Was A Clock-Making Center,' Historical New Hampshire VI, no. 1 (April 1950):2-13 excerpted from The Autobiography of Levi Hutchins: Preface, Notes and Addenda by His Youngest Son).
The sons of Revolutionary War hero, Colonel Gordon Hutchins, Levi (1761-1855) and Abel (1763-1855) Hutchins are two of the more familiar names associated with clock-making in the state of New Hampshire. After serving in the war and teaching school for a brief time, Levi wrote that 'My brother Abel and I, entertaining a desire to learn some trade, commenced our apprenticeship at clockmaking....The name of the ingenious man of whom we learned this business was Simon Willard, of Roxbury, Mass.' After three years with Willard, Levi moved to Connecticut and by 1784 he had returned to Concord, New Hampshire. Abel remained in Roxbury for several years when in 1786 he joined his brother in the clock-making business where they worked in a shop adjoining their jointly owned house; the two dissolved their partnership in 1807.
As partners, Levi and Abel Hutchins produced tall case clocks exclusively, signing their brass or painted dials with their full names or with initials; the former appearing less frequently as on this clock face. Levi and Abel manufactured the majority of their clocks in Concord except for a brief period of a month when they worked in Hopkinton when Levi was placed under arrest for challenging a client who failed to pay for a clock cleaning. After his stay, Levi noted that 'Having the limits of the jail-yard, which embraced the whole village, I boarded with a respectable family, and employed nine or ten hours each in working upon two clocks....' (Parsons, New Hampshire Clocks and Clock-makers (Exeter, 1976), pp. 319-321).
It may have been during this prison term that Levi and Abel Hutchins made an acquaintance with cabient-maker, David Young. Working in Hopkinton from circa 1775 until 1815, Young is known to have made clock cases of nearly identical design to this example for Edmund Currier also of Hopkinton and for Timothy Chandler of Concord (Parsons, fig. 14, ___ p. 2?, ___; Decorative Arts of New Hampshire (Currier, 1964), no. 87). ;Young and the Hutchinses obviously met at some point, for besides this example there is one other clock both signed by Levi and Abel Hutchins and labeled by David Young (Documented Furniture of New Hampshire (NHHS, 1978), no. 32). (One wonders whether these two examples are the clocks that Levi Hutchins described while in jail.)
Although this is only one of two clocks documented to all three craftsmen, Levi and Abel Hutchins apparently continued to associate with David Young or another cabinetmaker familiar with his work who made nearly identical, yet unlabeled cases for the brothers. See The Magazine Antiques (March 1969):358; (August 1972): 178; Skinner, Octÿber 29, 1988, lot 852; Parsons, fig. 6.
The sons of Revolutionary War hero, Colonel Gordon Hutchins, Levi (1761-1855) and Abel (1763-1855) Hutchins are two of the more familiar names associated with clock-making in the state of New Hampshire. After serving in the war and teaching school for a brief time, Levi wrote that 'My brother Abel and I, entertaining a desire to learn some trade, commenced our apprenticeship at clockmaking....The name of the ingenious man of whom we learned this business was Simon Willard, of Roxbury, Mass.' After three years with Willard, Levi moved to Connecticut and by 1784 he had returned to Concord, New Hampshire. Abel remained in Roxbury for several years when in 1786 he joined his brother in the clock-making business where they worked in a shop adjoining their jointly owned house; the two dissolved their partnership in 1807.
As partners, Levi and Abel Hutchins produced tall case clocks exclusively, signing their brass or painted dials with their full names or with initials; the former appearing less frequently as on this clock face. Levi and Abel manufactured the majority of their clocks in Concord except for a brief period of a month when they worked in Hopkinton when Levi was placed under arrest for challenging a client who failed to pay for a clock cleaning. After his stay, Levi noted that 'Having the limits of the jail-yard, which embraced the whole village, I boarded with a respectable family, and employed nine or ten hours each in working upon two clocks....' (Parsons, New Hampshire Clocks and Clock-makers (Exeter, 1976), pp. 319-321).
It may have been during this prison term that Levi and Abel Hutchins made an acquaintance with cabient-maker, David Young. Working in Hopkinton from circa 1775 until 1815, Young is known to have made clock cases of nearly identical design to this example for Edmund Currier also of Hopkinton and for Timothy Chandler of Concord (Parsons, fig. 14, ___ p. 2?, ___; Decorative Arts of New Hampshire (Currier, 1964), no. 87). ;Young and the Hutchinses obviously met at some point, for besides this example there is one other clock both signed by Levi and Abel Hutchins and labeled by David Young (Documented Furniture of New Hampshire (NHHS, 1978), no. 32). (One wonders whether these two examples are the clocks that Levi Hutchins described while in jail.)
Although this is only one of two clocks documented to all three craftsmen, Levi and Abel Hutchins apparently continued to associate with David Young or another cabinetmaker familiar with his work who made nearly identical, yet unlabeled cases for the brothers. See The Magazine Antiques (March 1969):358; (August 1972): 178; Skinner, Octÿber 29, 1988, lot 852; Parsons, fig. 6.