Searching for Answers

Watch and clock collectors sometimes inadvertently encounter more than expected when researching the provenance of unusual collectibles. This particular collecting story began about six years ago, when I moved into my current home and needed a fireplace mantel for my living room. I searched all the local furniture and antique stores and found just what I needed in  Architectural Antiques in Miami, as well as an unexpected something else. Tucked away in the corner of the warehouse was a large marble dial (height: 37"; width: 30"; depth: 3/4") with an inscription, “presented by Laura Spelman Rockefeller Class of 1855,” on the dial face beneath the 6 and minute track. I was intrigued and bought the dial, which found a home for two and a half years in my living room.

My research began three years ago, when I sent a picture of the mysterious dial to the NAWCC Library and Research Center (LARC) along with a request for information. The initial response from the former LARC archivist, Beth Bisbano, was brief: “Laura Spelman Rockefeller was the wife of John D. Rockefeller . . . She married John D. Rockefeller in 1864. She died in 1915 and was buried in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, which is also the burial location of her husband.” This short note about the Rockefellers made me want to find out more.

I contacted Ken Rose, assistant director at the Rockefeller Archive Center, and discovered that according to Grace Goulder, author of the book John D. Rockefeller: The Cleveland Years (Cleveland: Western Reserve Historical Society, 1972), Laura Spelman Rockefeller presented a clock to Central High School in Cleveland in 1896, on the occasion of the school’s 50th anniversary. Both John D. Rockefeller and Laura Spelman had attended the school. By 1896 the school had moved to a new location on Willson Avenue (now East 55th Street) in Cleveland (see Figure 3). The new school had been built with a new clock tower, but apparently a clock had never been installed. So Laura Spelman Rockefeller provided the clock.

Another round of inquiries to LARC resulted in the following response from Librarian Nancy Dyer, “I found your dial in a reproduction of the E. Howard catalog “Regulators, Office, and Bank Clocks” from 1900 (see Figure 2). The many dials pictured in the catalog were mostly designed to be part of an electric clock system in a public building. The catalog does not give any specifics of the movements that were used in these secondary clocks.

“An undated, but apparently earlier, catalog shows the same dial with the notation, ‘High grade weight and  pendulum movement. Can be used as a secondary clock operated from a master clock.’ Only movements for master and program clocks are provided in this catalog.”

The following further investigation proved that my dial was not a tower clock dial of Central High School, but it was part of the clock system and was probably intended as a presentation clock for the school’s office.

Ted Brachfeld, a former LARC volunteer and now clock instructor at the School of Horology, wrote: “Because of the large size of the dial, the original movement was probably a slave movement or some other type of electric movement. The fact that there are no holes in the face of the dial to allow access to winding arbors leads me to this conclusion.”

I wrote a letter to Dana Blackwell, the foremost E. Howard Company historian, requesting information. He responded on March 2, 2005, with the following:

“The clock about which you write is a special [one] originally designed for the Gorham Manuf. Co. (Silversmiths of Providence, RI) and was furnished with a high-grade pendulum and weight movement, or with a master clock (No. 89) and a secondary clock, which your clock was intended to be (there are no winding knobs in the dial). Some years ago Howard gave up time systems and tried to sell the division to the Standard Electric Time Co. of Springfield, MA, but they declined purchase. I think they got rid of the remnants at the time, so today no information on specific systems is available. These systems are now considered curiosities or old relics since more modern equipment is available. There are some old systems still functioning, but that is because someone in the area who is knowledgeable is able to keep it operating.

“Years ago Howard had installed several of these systems in Cleveland: Cleveland Trust Co., Central High School, Hickox Bldg. I doubt if any of these remain in use.”

What’s so Special about  Central High School?

A booklet titled, Central High School Centennial, 1846-1946 (Cleveland: Central High School, 1946) provided the following information:

Central High School, started on July 13, 1846, was the first free public high school west of the Allegheny Mountains in the United States. The school opened in “the dark, damp, poorly ventilated basement” of a church on the north side of Prospect, immediately west of East 9th Street.

Because the proposal to found a free public high school was considered radical by the conservatives of the day, its founding in 1846 was attended by controversy . . . “Andrew Freese was the brave and harassed teacher assigned to the new venture . . . Originally there were 34 boys in the class, whom Mr. Freese was to educate on the handsome budget of $750 that the City Council had appropriated.  . . He had little equipment, particularly that of a nature needed by the beginning natural sciences, and he had a hot controversy in addition on his hands. The controversy was whether girls should also be admitted, a proposal that the conservatives thought was radically scandalous.”

Within a year the controversy over girls was resolved by their admittance, a circumstance that prompted the City Council to raise the annual budget to $900 to permit the employment of a woman teacher to assist Mr. Freese.

Central was given a new school building in 1851, a temporary frame structure . . . the enrollment doubled, a four-year term was instituted, and in 1855 the school held its first formal commencement.

Among the graduates at the first formal commencement was Laura Spelman, later Mrs. John D. Rockefeller.

By 1856 a new brick and stone structure replacing the frame building was built with ten classrooms at a cost of $20,000.

In 1878 a new school building was constructed on E. 55th Street. This four-story brownstone building featured thirteenth to fourteenth-century German-gothic style architecture and cost $74,000.

As reported by Grace Goulder in John D. Rockefeller: The Cleveland Years (p. 13), “A notable feature of the structure was a tall clock tower, but a clock had not been installed. For the occasion Mrs. Rockefeller supplied a suitable timepiece and had it placed in the space reserved for it.”

The program for Central High School’s 50th Anniversary states: In 1896, Mrs. John D. Rockefeller provided a clock for the bell tower.

John and Laura Rockefeller at Central High

Laura Celestia Spelman Rockefeller was born September 9, 1839, in Wadsworth, OH. She was taken by her parents from Kent to Akron and eventually settled in Cleveland, where she graduated from Central in 1855 at the age of 16. Her education was finished in boarding school in Worcester, MA. She then went on to teach in the public schools of Cleveland for five years. She married John D. Rockefeller in 1864.

John D. Rockefeller was born on a farm in New York in 1839. He attended Central High along with Laura, but left a few weeks shy of graduating for E. C. Folsom’s Commercial College. It was at this institution where John learned principles of banking, methods of business transactions, and bookkeeping.

Central High School always remained dear to both Laura and John. For the school’s 50th anniversary the couple hosted their classmates at their Cleveland home. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 3, 1896, carried a report of the reception:

“Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller gave an informal reception at their town house, corner of Case and Euclid Avenues, on Thursday afternoon for the members of the Central High School during the years of 1854, ’55 and ’56. The hours were from 3 until 6, and about forty gray-haired men and women met with the multimillionaire and his wife, and chatted over old times. Mrs. Rockefeller, who was formerly Miss Lucy M. Spellman [actually, the paper made an error; Lucy was Laura’s sister], was a teacher at Brownell Street School. She has always been deeply interested in school work, and especially in the reunions of the Central High School alumni. There was a delicious supper served last evening, the dining room being tastefully decorated with spring flowers. Many merry reminiscences were related, and the affair was most thoroughly enjoyed.”

Laura passed away in 1915. In 1921 a Diamond Jubilee celebration was arranged to mark the 75th anniversary of Central High School. According to Goulder’s book, John sent William Ganson Rose, chairman of the committee on arrangements, a long nostalgic letter from his New York home, recalling “our delightful meeting of 25 years ago . . .when we met at our home.”

He also added,  “I am proud of my connection with the school and most appreciative of the many fine characters among the boys and girls, so many of whom have made their mark and rendered valuable service to the world. I recall with great pleasure the old teachers, Mr. Freese and Mr. White . . . and I want to feel that so long as life lasts that you will count on me as one of you, though it is now 66 years since that summer day in ’55 when I bade farewell to the dear old school to take up the burden of life’s duties.”

About the Author

Peter Klein has been an NAWCC member since 1977 and currently serves as NAWCC Board Treasurer. He is a member of Florida Gold Coast Chapter 60 and Palm Beaches of Florida Chapter 99. His primary collecting interests are eighteenth- and nineteenth-century musical clocks, automata, and music boxes.