Tall-case clock

Datecirca 1765

MediumA longcase clock with chinoiserie surface decoration and a brass dial

Donor credit lineGift of Stanford Crapo II

Object number2013.33.3

Institutional Credit LineCourtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum

DescriptionThis tall-case clock, 93” high, japanned with chinoiserie scenes on case door and lower front panel. Clocks like this can be considered in three parts: the cabinet or case, which would most often have been made by a cabinet-maker, the works fashioned by a clockmaker, and the decoration -- in this case ebonized Japanning.

The works of this clock, inscribed on the dial face “Geo. Prior /London” were made by George Prior of London circa 1765-1810, a clockmaker known to specialize in clocks for export, specifically “Turkish Market Clocks.” He made clocks for the British Colonial and English markets, as well. The works include two weights, a pendulum and a bell.

The clock’s break-arch dial includes a silent/strike choice for the bell, a second hand and a calendar although the calendar may not function. The brass dial has Roman hours and Arabic minutes. The textured brass surface of the dial is faintly ferrous. The case is mainly pine with an oak back and other unidentified hardwoods, including perhaps ash and mahogany, with various secondary woods including oak and other hardwoods and softwoods. The whole case is painted black (ebonized) with gold highlights, arch-top bonnet door with three gold ball finials and matched open fretwork friezes rising to a peak along the top of the bonnet. The case has a plinth base. While elegant in proportion and very attractive, the case is not particularly elaborate in comparison to other clocks of the period nor does it exhibit exceptional craftsmanship in its joinery or materials, probably due to the fact that it was to be painted (ebonized). Frederick Britten in "Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers" describes such cases as being “English country style.”

The chinoiserie scenes appear to have been done by two separate hands. The scene on the door includes an asymmetrical landscape of pagodas with three individuals one of whom is draining the last drops from a beaker while holding another in his hand. The bottom panel is a Zen-like asymmetrical landscape of a pond with two pagodas and quays, including an individual at left standing on a quay making an offering of some type toward a door leading to nowhere. It’s a spellbinding piece of art but a challenge to see as it is so low and so dark. Both chinoiserie scenes are almost too dark to distinguish. It is highly possible that the chinoisserie decoration was done in Boston, after the clock arrived on shipboard, and before it was sent to market or to its buyer.

The clock descended in two prominent regional families: the Slocums and then Crapos. William Wallace Crapo (1830-1926) who grew up in the old Peleg Slocum mansion house at Barney’s Joy, in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts (circa 1700-1880s. See: Certain Comeoverers, p. 351) remembered the clock being in the house (Certain Comeoverers, Vol. 1, pp. 357-59) at that time. Family lore suggests that the clock was in the house as early as the 1740s, but this is inconsistent with the working dates of the maker. The clock’s previous owner, Stan Crapo, surmised that “the clock works were built for a standard case. Apparently Peleg Slocum, third of the name, either wanted a very tall clock, or possibly it was one ordered by someone else who didn't pay for it.” Peleg Slocum purchased the house and property in 1750 from his cousin Ebenezer Slocum, a nephew of the original owner of the property Peleg Slocum and the son of Eliezar Slocum, Peleg’s brother. Peleg was one of the original proprietors of the Old Dartmouth region.

Family lore indicates that the clock was “smuggled” into the colonies, possibly through the island of Cuttyhunk, which was owned by Peleg Slocum. The smuggling story seems inconsistent historically, as this is an English clock being brought into an English colony. Slocum also owned a wharf in Newport, Rhode Island and was known to trade with the West Indies, possibly for enslaved people. The English clock could easily have come into the colonies via the slave trade from the West Indies to Newport, possibly even through Barbados, an English colony and a frequent stopover for Quakers en route to Newport. The Slocum family, either Peleg or his nephew Ebenezer in fact owned Captain Paul Cuffe’s father Kofi possibly as early as 1728. When Kofi self-emancipated he moved to Cuttyhunk Island and later to Westport, Massachusetts.

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