PEORIA MAGAZINE April 2023

the machinery of the Newark Watch Factory was moved to Chicago. But by 1874, “Cornell was looking for relief, too,” Fuller recalled. He moved the factory to San Francisco, intending to exploit the cheap Chinese labor there. Alas, the construction of the transcontinental railroad prompted much racial prejudice. White workers “threatened to strike if Chinese were hired and so the company was forced to abandon this idea,” wrote Fuller. Only a few watches were finished in San Francisco before the operation was moved to Berkeley in 1875. The California Watch Company declared bankruptcy and closed in 1876. CHANGING TIME ZONES AGAIN In Fredonia, New York, the Howard brothers, Edward and Clarence, were corporate opportunists. They set up a business purchasing watch movements from various companies and selling them at retail establishments under the name “The Independent Watch Company.” In 1880 they decided to try their hand at manufacturing, forming the Fredonia Watch Company. The machinery, from defunct companies in California and Illinois, was on the move again. The Howards were progressive in adopting the non-magnetic balance springs of Charles Auguste Paillard, but consumers weren’t warming to watches sold through retail outlets, and Fredonia floundered. In 1883, John C. Adams was again enlisted to assist the Howard broth ers. He recommended moving the factory to Peoria. The endeavor was encouraged by an organization called the “Peoria Improvement Association.” Contractor John L. Flynn was granted the construction contract for $17,500. The Chicago Inter Ocean reported in December of 1886 that the Peoria Watch Company would manufacture “quick train” – faster beat – “railway watches” with 15 jewels, “the only anti-magnetic watch manufactured in this country; escapement of aluminum bronze, which cannot be magnetized.” The Peoria watches used Paillard’s patented non

magnetic alloy. Its main ingredient was palladium, not aluminum. Electricity was coming into wide spread use, and the balance springs, thinner than a human hair, were ex tremely susceptible to the influence of magnetos used in motors of all types. Paillard’s invention was even endorsed by Thomas Edison as an infallible solu tion to the erratic performance caused by magnetism. In 1888, the Peoria watches were said to carry a two-year warranty. Fuller stated: “I am convinced that the Non Magnetic watches by Peoria (were) the best products the company ever manufactured.” The escapement of the movement was said to be made of the same alloy used by the most prestigious watch manufacturers in Switzerland. A GENEROUS BENEFACTOR The Peoria operation began with a capital investment of $250,000 and was to be built on Peoria’s West Bluff, on property donated by Lydia Moss Bradley and a few others. Bradley specifically stipulated that the land be designated for a watch factory. Elisabeth Griswold also donated land, and this was where Clarence Howard built his residence. The Sanborn Insurance Maps of Peoria from the Library of Congress pictured the factory in 1891 between Bradley and Fuller Streets. The stor age, gilding and engraving departments were on the first floor, the finishing and adjusting operations on the second floor. The east wing housed the ma chine shop and train room, where the wheels were made and teeth cut. The jeweling department was on its second floor. The Peoria operation had about 90 employees producing 30 movements per day by the first of June 1887. Estimates had the company realizing $150,000 in revenue from the watches produced in that first year. The first complete watch manufactured in the Peoria factory, serial number one, was completed sometime in late 1886 or early 1887 and presented to a major businessman and investor named Joseph B. Greenhut, a local railroad executive, banker and businessman

of considerable wealth. With Adams’ influence, the factory drew on the expertise and talent of both the Elgin and Illinois watch companies. ‘THE PEORIA WATCH’ MAKES A NAME FOR ITSELF By May 1 of 1886, the watch factory was being called “the pride of the West Bluff” by the Peoria Saturday Evening Call. Part of Adams’ strategy for the merchandising of the product was to advertise and market to the nation’s growing railroad industry, where keeping time was essential to safety. In 1887, the “Peoria Watch” was being advertised as the “official watch of the Santa Fe Railway.” It also had been adopted by the Wabash, Denver & Rio Grande and Southern Pacific railways. “Any railroad man who has ever used ‘The Peoria Watch’ will never use any other,” it was said at the time. This was still 10 years before Webb C. Ball proposed a specific standard for railroad timepieces used in the U.S. Watch factories in the 19th century usually produced movements that were sent directly to jewelers, who offered them to clients and fitted them to a variety of cases with everything from base metal to solid gold or platinum. Because the watch

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