The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 63, January, 1863

This sensible advice was but another proof of the accuracy of my watch.

While it was yet ticking, the train stopped at West Newton, and we stepped out upon the platform. The station nearest to the Watch-Factory is that at Waltham upon the Fitchburg Railroad; but by taking the Worcester cars to West Newton, you secure a pleasant drive of a mile or two across the country. If you can also secure, as my watch took care to do for me, the company of the resident manager of the factory, the drive is entirely pleasant and the talk full of value.

We import about five millions of dollars' worth of watches every year, mainly from England and Switzerland through France, and then pay about as much more to get them to go. Of course inquisitive Yankee ingenuity long ago asked the question, Why should we do it? If anything is to be made, why should not we make it better than anybody in the world? The answer was very evident,—because we could not compete with the skilled and poorly paid labor of Europe. But during the last war with England the question became as emphatic as it is now, and a practical answer was given in the excellent watches made at Worcester in Massachusetts, and at Hartford in Connecticut.

But these were merely prophetic protests. The best watches in use were Swiss. Four-fifths of the work in making them was done by hand in separate workshops, subject of course to the skill, temper, and conscience of the workmen. The various parts of each were then sent in to the finisher. Every watch was thus a separate and individual work. There could be no absolute precision in the parts of different watches even of the same general model; and only the best works of the best finishers were the best watches. The purchase of a watch became almost as uncertain as that of a horse, and many of the dealers might be called watch-jockeys as justly as horse-dealers horse-jockeys.

A.L. Dennison, of Maine, seems to have been the first who conceived American watch-making as a manufacture that could hold its own against European competition. It was clear enough that to put raw and well-paid American labor into the field against European skill and low wages, with no other protection than four per cent., which was then the tariff, was folly. But why not apply the same principle to making watches that Eli Whitney applied to making fire-arms, and put machinery to do the work of men, thereby saving wages and securing uniform excellence of work? There was no reason whatever, provided you could make the machinery. Mr. Dennison supplied the idea; who would supply the means of working it out? He was an enthusiast, of course,—visionary, probably; for in all inventors the imagination must be so powerful that it will sometimes disturb the conditions essential to the practical experiment; but he interested others until the necessary tools began to appear, and enough capital being willing to try the chances, the experiment of making American watches by machinery began in Roxbury in the year 1850. After various fortunes, the manufacture passed from the original hands into those of the present company, which is incorporated by the State of Massachusetts.

"Do you think," whispered I to my watch, as I listened to these facts, "that the experiment is still doubtful?"

My companion ticked so indignantly that my friend the manager evidently suspected what question I had asked, and he answered at once,—

"The experiment is already perfectly successful. We have had our critical moments, but"–

"But now," proudly ticked my watch, "now we have weathered the Cape Horn of adversity and doubt, and ride secure upon the deep Pacific sea of prosperity and certainty. You had better blow a note like that through your Atlantic Bugle. Set your tune high, and play it up loud and lively."

"It seems to me," answered I, "that the tune plays itself. There is no need of puffing at the instrument."

While my watch was thus pleasantly jesting, we had passed through a low pine wood and come out upon the banks of the Charles River. Just before us, upon the very edge of a river-basin, was a low two-story building full of windows, and beyond, over the trees, were spires. They were the steeples of Waltham, and the many-windowed building was the factory of the American Watch Company. It stands upon a private road opened by the Company in a domain of about seventy acres belonging to them. The building thus secures quiet and freedom from dust, which are essential conditions of so delicate and exquisite a manufacture.

The counting-room, which you enter first, is cheerful and elegant. A new building, which the Company is adding to the factory, will give them part of the ampler room the manufacture now demands; and within the last few months the Company has absorbed the machinery and labor of a rival company at Nashua, which was formed of some of the graduate workmen of Waltham, but which was not successful. Every room in the factory is full of light. The benches of polished cherry, the length of all of them together being about three-quarters of a mile, are ranged along the sides of the rooms, from the windows in which the prospect is rural and peaceful. There is a low hum, but no loud roar or jar in the building. There is no unpleasant smell, and all the processes are so neat and exquisite that an air of elegance pervades the whole.

The first impression, upon hearing that a watch is made by machinery, is, that it must be rather coarse and clumsy. No machine so cunning as the human hand, we are fond of saying. But, if you will look at this gauge, for instance, and then at any of these dainty and delicate machines upon the benches, miniature lathes of steel, and contrivances which combine the skill of innumerable exquisite fingers upon single points, you will feel at once, that, when the machinery itself is so almost poetic and sensitive, the result of its work must be correspondingly perfect.

My friend—not the watch, but the watchmaker—said quietly, "By your leave," and, pulling a single hair from my head, touched it to a fine gauge, which indicated exactly the thickness of the hair. It was a test of the twenty-five hundredth part of an inch. But there are also gauges graduated to the ten-thousandth part of an inch. Here is a workman making screws. Can you just see them? That hardly visible point exuding from the almost imperceptible hole is one of them. A hundred and fifty thousand of them make a pound. The wire costs a dollar; the screws are worth nine hundred and fifty dollars. The magic touch of the machine makes that wire nine hundred and fifty times more valuable. The operator sets them in regular rows upon a thin plate. When the plate is full, it is passed to another machine, which cuts the little groove upon the top of each,—and of course exactly in the same spot. Every one of those hundred and fifty thousand screws in every pound is accurately the same as every other, and any and all of them, in this pound or any pound, any one of the millions or ten millions of this size, will fit precisely every hole made for this sized screw in every plate of every watch made in the factory. They are kept in little glass phials, like those in which the homoeopathic doctors keep their pellets.

The fineness and variety of the machinery are so amazing, so beautiful,—there is such an exquisite combination of form and movement,—such sensitive teeth and fingers and wheels and points of steel,—such fairy knives of sapphire, with which King Oberon the first might have been beheaded, had he insisted upon levying dew-taxes upon primroses without the authority of his elves,—such smooth cylinders, and flying points so rapidly revolving that they seem perfectly still.—such dainty oscillations of parts with the air of intelligent consciousness of movement,—that a machinery so extensive in details, so complex, so harmonious, at length entirely magnetizes you with wonder and delight, and you are firmly persuaded that you behold the magnified parts of a huge brain in the very act of thinking out watches.

In various rooms, by various machines, the work of perfecting the parts from the first blank form cut out of Connecticut brass goes on. Shades of size are adjusted by the friction of whirring cylinders coated with diamond dust. A flying steel point touched with diamond paste pierces the heart of the "jewels." Wheels rimmed with brass wisps hum steadily, as they frost the plates with sparkling gold. Shaving of metal peel off, as other edges turn, so impalpably fine that five thousand must be laid side by side to make an inch. But there is no dust, no unseemly noise. All is cheerful and airy, the faces of the workers most of all. You pass on from point to point, from room to room. Every machine is a day's study and a life's admiration, if you could only tarry. No wonder the director says to me, as we move on, that his whole consciousness is possessed by the elaborate works he superintends.

He opens a door, while we speak, and you would not be in the least surprised, in the exalted condition to which the wonderful spectacle has brought you, to hear him say, "In this room we keep the Equator." In fact, as the door opens, and the gush of hot air breathes out upon your excited brain, it seems to you as if it undoubtedly were the back-door to—the Tropics. It is the dial-room, in which the enamel is set. The porcelain is made in London. It is reduced to a paste in this room, and fused upon thin copperplates at white heat. When cooled, it is ground off smoothly, then baked to acquire a smooth glaze. It is then ready for painting with the figures.

When all the pieces of the watch-movement are thus prepared, they are gathered in sets, and carried to the putting-up room, where each part is thoroughly tested and regulated. The pieces move in processions of boxes, each part by itself; and each watch, when put together, is as good as every other. In an old English lever-watch there are between eight and nine hundred pieces. In the American there are but about a hundred and twenty parts. My friend the director says, that, if you put a single American against a single European watch, the foreign may vary a second less in a certain time; but if you will put fifty or a hundred native against the same number of foreign watches, the native group will be uniformly more accurate. In the case of two watches of exactly the same excellence, the regulator of one may be adjusted to the precise point, while that of the other may imperceptibly vary from that point. But that is a chance. The true test is in a number.

"If now we add," ticked the faithful friend in my pocket, "that watch-movements of a similar grade without the cases are produced here at half the cost of the foreign, doesn't it seem to you that we have Lancashire and Warwickshire in England and Locle and La Chaux de Fond in Switzerland upon the hip?"

"It certainly does," I answered,—for what else could I say?

Five different sizes of watches are made at Waltham. The latest is the Lady's Watch, for which no parent or lover need longer go to Geneva. And the affectionate pride with which the manager took up one of the finest specimens of the work and turned it round for me to see was that of a parent showing a precious child.

While we strolled through every room, the workers were not less interesting to see than the work. There are now about three hundred and fifty of them, of whom nearly a third are women. Scarcely twenty are foreigners, and they are not employed upon the finest work. Of course, as the machinery is peculiar to this factory, the workers must be specially instructed. The foremen are not only overseers, but teachers; and I do not often feel myself to be in a more intelligent and valuable society than that which surrounded me, a wondering, staring, smiling, inquiring, utterly unskilful body in the ancestral halls of my tried friend and trusty counsellor, The American Watch.

* * * * *

BENJAMIN BANNEKER, THE NEGRO ASTRONOMER

In these days, when strong interests, embodied in fierce parties, are clashing, one recalls the French proverb of those who make so much noise that you cannot hear God thunder. It does not take much noise to drown the notes of a violin; but go to the hill a fourth of a mile off, and the noises shall die away at its base, whilst the music shall be heard. Those who can remove themselves away from and above the plane of party-din can hear God's modulated thunder in the midst of it, uttering ever a "certain tune and measured music." And such can hear now the great voice at the sepulchre's door of a race, saying, Come forth! This war is utterly inexplicable except as the historic method of delivering the African race in America from slavery, and this nation from the crime and curse inevitably linked therewith in the counsels of God, which are the laws of Nature. If the friends of freedom in the Government do not understand this, it is plain enough that the myrmidons of slavery throughout the land understand it. And hence it is that we are witnessing their unremitting efforts to exasperate the prejudices of the vulgar against the negro, and to prove degradation, and slavery to be his normal condition. They point to his figure as sculptured on ancient monuments, bearing chains, and claim that his enslavement is lawful as immemorial custom; but as well point to the brass collars on our Saxon forefathers' necks to prove their enslavement lawful. The fact that slavery belonged to a patriarchal age is the very reason why it is impracticable in a republican age,—as its special guardians in this country seem to have discovered. But this question is now scarcely actual. The South, by its first blow against the Union and the Constitution, whose neutrality toward it was its last and only protection from the spirit of the age, did, like the simple fisherman, unseal the casket in which the Afreet had been so long dwarfed. He is now escaping. Thus far, indeed, he is so much escaped force; for he might be bearing our burdens for us, if we only rubbed up the lamp which the genie obeys. But whether we shall do this or not, it is very certain that he is now emerging from the sea and the casket, and into it will descend no more. Henceforth the negro is to take his place in the family of races; and no studies can be more suitable to our times than those which recognize his special capacity.

The questions raised by military exigencies have brought before the public the many interesting facts drawn from the history of Hayti and from our own Revolution, showing the heroism of the negro, though we doubt whether they can surpass the stories of Tatnall, Small, and others, which have led a high European authority to observe that in this war no individual heroism among the whites has equalled that of the blacks. But the forthcoming social questions concerning the negro will be even more exciting than the military. What are we to expect from the unsealed Afreet,—good or evil? It was whilst studying in this direction that I came upon the few facts which relate to Benjamin Banneker,—facts which, though not difficult of access, are scarcely known beyond the district in Maryland where, on the spot where he was born, his unadorned grave receives now and then a visit from some pilgrim of his own race who has found out the nobleness which Jefferson recognized and Condorcet admired.

Benjamin Banneker was born in Baltimore County, near the village of Ellicott's Mills, in the year 1732. There was not a drop of the white man's blood in his veins. His father was born in Africa, and his mother's parents were both natives of Africa. What genius he had, then, must be credited to that race. Benjamin's mother was a remarkable woman, and of a remarkable family. Her name was Morton, before marriage, and a nephew of hers, Greenbury Morton, was gifted with a lively and impetuous eloquence which made its mark in his neighborhood. Of him it is related that he once came to a certain election-precinct in Baltimore County to deposit his vote; for, prior to the year 1809, negroes with certain property-qualifications voted in Maryland. It was in this year, in which the law restricting the right of voting to free whites was passed, that Morton, who had not heard of its passage, came to the polls. When his vote was refused, Morton in a state of excitement took his stand on a door-step, and was immediately surrounded by the crowd, whom he addressed in a strain of passionate and prophetic eloquence which bore all hearts and minds with him. He warned them that the new law was a step backward from the standard which their fathers had raised in the Declaration, and which they had hoped would soon be realized in universal freedom; that that step, unless retraced, would end in bitter and remorseless revolutions. The crowd was held in breathless attention, and none were found to favor the new law.

This man, we have said, was the nephew of Benjamin's mother. She was a woman of remarkable energy, and after she was seventy years of age was accustomed to run down the chickens she wished to catch. Her husband was a slave when she married him, but it was a very small part of her life's task to purchase his freedom. Together they soon bought a farm of one hundred acres, which we find conveyed by Richard Gist to Robert Bannaky, (as the name was then spelt,) and Benjamin Bannaky, his son, (then five years old,) on the tenth of March, 1737, for the consideration of seven thousand pounds of tobacco. The region in which Benjamin was born was almost a wilderness; for in 1732 Elkridge Landing was of more importance than Baltimore; and even in 1754 this city consisted only of some twenty poor houses straggling on the hills to the right of Jones's Falls. The residence of the Bannekers was ten miles into the wilderness from these.

It was under these unpromising circumstances that little Benjamin grew up, his destiny being apparently nothing more than to work on the little farm beside his poor and ignorant parents. When he was approaching manhood, he went, in the intervals of toil, to an obscure and remote country-school; for, until the cotton-gin made negroes too valuable on the animal side for the human side to be allowed anything so perilous as education, there were to be found here and there in the South fountains whereat even negroes might slake their thirst for learning. At this school Benjamin acquired a knowledge of reading and writing, and advanced in arithmetic as far as "Double Position." Beyond these rudiments he was entirely his own teacher. After leaving school he had to labor constantly for his own support; but he lost nothing of what he had acquired. It is a frequent remark that up to a certain point the negroes learn even more rapidly than white children under the same teaching, but that afterward, in the higher branches, they are slow, and, some maintain, incapable. Young Banneker had no books at all, but in the midst of his labor he so improved upon and evolved what he had gained in arithmetic that his intelligence became a matter of general observation. He was such an acute observer of the natural world, and had so diligently observed the signs of the times in society, that it is very doubtful whether at forty years of age this African had his superior in Maryland.

Perhaps the first wonder amongst his comparatively illiterate neighbors was excited, when, about the thirtieth year of his age, Benjamin made a clock. It is probable that this was the first clock of which every portion was made in America; it is certain that it was as purely his own invention as if none had ever been made before. He had seen a watch, but never a clock, such an article not being within fifty miles of him. The watch was his model. He was a long time at work on the clock,—his chief difficulty, as he used often to relate, being to make the hour, minute, and second hands correspond in their motion. But at last the work was completed, and raised the admiration for Banneker to quite a high pitch among his few neighbors.

The making of the clock proved to be of great importance in assisting the young man to fulfil his destiny. It attracted the attention of the Ellicott family, who had just begun a settlement at Ellicott's Mills. They were well-educated men, with much mechanical knowledge, and some of them Quakers. They sought out the ingenious negro, and he could not have fallen into better hands. It was in 1787 that Benjamin received from Mr. George Ellicott Mayer's "Tables," Ferguson's "Astronomy," and Leadbetter's "Lunar Tables." Along with these, some astronomical instruments, also, were given him. Mr. Ellicott, prevented from telling Benjamin anything concerning the use of the instruments for some time after they were given, went over to repair this omission one day, but found that the negro had discovered all about them and was already quite independent of instruction. From this time astronomy became the great object of Banneker's life, and in its study he almost disappeared from the sight of his neighbors. He was unmarried, and lived alone in the cabin and on the farm which he had inherited from his parents. He had still to labor for his living; but he so simplified his wants as to be enabled to devote the greater portion of his time to astronomical studies. He slept much during the day, that he might the more devotedly observe at night the heavenly bodies whose laws he was slowly, but surely, mastering.

And now he began to have a taste of that persecution to which every genius under similar circumstances is subject. He was no longer seen in the field, where formerly his constancy had gained him a reputation for industry, and some who called at his cabin during the day-time found him asleep; so he began to be spoken of as a lazy fellow, who would come to no good, and whose age would disappoint the promise of his youth. There was a time when this so excited his neighbors against him that he had serious fears of disturbance. A memorandum in his hand-writing, dated December 18, 1790, states:—

"– –informed me that – stole my horse and great-coat, and that the said – intended to murder me when opportunity presented. – – gave me a caution to let no one come into my house after dark."

The names were originally written in full; but they were afterward carefully cancelled, as though Banneker had reflected that it was wrong to leave on record an unauthenticated assertion against an individual, which, if untrue, might prejudice him by the mere fact that it had been made.

Very soon after the possession of the books already mentioned, Banneker determined to compile an almanac, that being the most familiar use that occurred to him of the information he had acquired. To make an almanac was a very different thing then from what it would be now, when there is an abundance of accurate tables and rules. Banneker had no aid whatever from men or tables; and Mr. George Ellicott, who procured some tables and took them to him, states that he had advanced far in the preparation of the logarithms necessary for his purpose. A memorandum in his calculations at this time thus corrects an error in Ferguson's Astronomy:—

"It appears to me that the wisest men may at times be in error: for instance, Dr. Ferguson informs us, that, when the sun is within 12° of either node at the time of full, the moon will be eclipsed; but I find, that, according to his method of projecting a lunar eclipse, there will be none by the above elements, and yet the sun is within 11° 46' 11" of the moon's ascending node. But the moon being in her apogee prevents the appearance of this eclipse."

Another memorandum makes the following corrections:—

"Errors that ought to be corrected in my Astronomical Tables are these:—2d vol. Leadbetter, p. 201, when [symbol] anomaly is 4^s 30°, the equation 3° 30' 41" ought to have been 3° 28' 41". In [symbol] equation, p. 155, the logarithm of his distance from [symbol] ought to have been 6 in the second place from the index, instead of 7, that is, from the time that his anomaly is 3^s 24° until it is 4^s O°."

Both Ferguson and Leadbetter would have been amazed, had they been informed that their elaborate works had been reviewed and corrected by a negro in the then unheard-of valley of the Patapsco.

The first almanac prepared by Banneker for publication was for the year 1792. By this time his acquirements had become generally known, and amongst those who were attracted by them was James McHenry, Esq. Mr. McHenry wrote to Goddard and Angell, then the almanac-publishers of Baltimore, and procured the publication of this work, which contained, from the pen of Mr. McHenry, a brief notice of Banneker. In their editorial notice Goddard and Angell say, "They feel gratified in the opportunity of presenting to the public through their press what must be considered as an extraordinary effort of genius,—a complete and accurate Ephemeris for the year 1792, calculated by a sable son of Africa," etc. And they further say that "they flatter themselves that a philanthropic public, in this enlightened era, will be induced to give their patronage and support to this work, not only on account of its intrinsic merits, (it having met the approbation of several of the most distinguished astronomers of America, particularly the celebrated Mr. Rittenhouse,) but from similar motives to those which induced the editors to give this calculation the preference, the ardent desire of drawing modest merit from obscurity, and controverting the long-established illiberal prejudice against the blacks."

Banneker was himself entirely conscious of the bearings of his case upon the position of his people; and though remarkable for an habitual modesty, he solemnly claimed that his works had earned respect for the African race. In this spirit he wrote to Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State under Washington, transmitting a manuscript copy of his almanac. The letter is a fervent appeal for the down-trodden negro, and a protest against the injustice and inconsistency of the United States toward that color. Mr. Jefferson's reply is as follows:—

"Philadelphia, Pa., August 30, 1791.

"Sir,—I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th instant, and for the almanac it contained. Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that Nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing only to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa and America. I can add with truth that no one wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body and mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstances which cannot be neglected, will admit. I have taken the liberty of sending your almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and Member of the Philanthropic Society, because I considered it a document to which your whole color had a right for their justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them.

"I am, with great esteem, Sir,

"Your most obedient serv't,

"THO. JEFFERSON."

When his first almanac was published, Banneker was fifty-nine years of age, and had received tokens of respect from all the scientific men of the country. The commissioners appointed after the adoption of the Constitution in 1789 to run the lines of the District of Columbia invited the presence and assistance of Banneker, and treated him as an equal. They invited him to take a seat at their table; but he declined, and requested a separate table.

Banneker continued to calculate and publish almanacs until the year 1802. Besides numerous valuable astronomical and mathematical notes found amongst his papers are observations of passing events, showing that he had the mind of a philosopher. For instance:—

"27th Aug. 1797. Standing at my door, I heard the discharge of a gun, and in four or five seconds of time the small shot came rattling about me, one or two of which struck the house; which plainly demonstrates that the velocity of sound is greater than that of a cannon-bullet."

"23d Dec. 1790. About 3 o'clock A.M., I heard a sound and felt a shock like unto heavy thunder. I went out, but could not observe any cloud. I therefore conclude it must be a great earthquake in some part of the globe."

In April, 1800, he writes:—

"The first great locust year that I can remember was 1749. I was then about seventeen years of age, when thousands of them came creeping up the trees. I imagined they came to destroy the fruit of the earth, and would occasion a famine in the land. I therefore began to destroy them, but soon saw that my labor was in vain. Again, in the year 1766, seventeen years after their first appearance, they made a second. I then, being about thirty-four years of age, had more sense than to endeavor to destroy them, knowing they were not so pernicious to the fruit as I had imagined. Again, in the year 1783, which was seventeen years later, they made their third appearance to me; and they may be expected again in 1800. The female has a sting in her tail as sharp and hard as a thorn, with which she perforates the branches of trees, and in the holes lays eggs. The branch soon dies and falls. Then the egg, by some occult cause, immerges a great depth into the earth, and there continues for the space of seventeen years, as aforesaid."

The following is worthy of Pliny:—

"In the month of January, 1797, on a pleasant day for the season, I observed my honey-bees to be out of their hives, and they seemed to be very busy, excepting one hive. Upon examination, I found all the bees had evacuated this hive, and left not a drop behind them. On the 9th of February ensuing, I killed the neighboring hives of bees, and found a great quantity of honey, considering the season,—which I imagine the stronger had taken from the weaker, and the weaker had pursued them to their home, resolved to be benefited by their labor, or die in the contest."