Lighthouse Clocks
The master clockmaker, Simon Willard, working in Roxbury, Massachusetts invented the lighthouse clock and filed its patent in 1822. A rare clock with only about two dozen known, the lighthouse clock’s typical thirty inch form is usually a slightly tapering mahogany cylinder topped by a glass dome housing the clock’s dial and exposed works. Some cases have bronze mounts, some plain, and some are foreshortened and sit atop an integral square or rectangular cabinet base. Most have ball feet, but brass paw and wood plinth feet are known. The glass domes, at least some of which were made by the Sandwich Glass Co., usually have a knob or handle to facilitate removing it from the clock.
The clock, sometimes called the Eddystone Lighthouse clock after the famous lighthouse at Plymouth, England, most often had a brass, 8-day, weight-driven movement with strike. The first models contained an alarm mechanism as well, but most did not.