GRANDPA HINCKLEY’S STORY
Whilst doing some research I came across this article that was published in the Boston Globe, Sunday, March 3, 1904.
This old guy must have been a character and a half
HENRY ALLEN HINCKLEY is 97 years old and can read the Globe without glasses.
Henry Allen Hinckley, the oldest clockmaker in this country, will celebrate his 97th birthday May next. He lives at 389 Dudley Street, this city, within a block of the E. C. Howard Clock Co. with which he has been associated for the past 40 years.
A Globe man called on Mr. Hinckley and found a man more in appearance and action like one of 60 years, and he told many interesting events that happened to him during his long and busy life.
I was born in 1810 (he said) in Barnstable, Mass, I descended from Thomas Hinckley, who was Governor of the Plymouth Colony during King Philip’s war. My mother was a Lothrop, descended from Captain Isaac Lothrop of Falmouth, a famous Indian fighter.
My father was offered the position of superintendent of the Jamaica Plains water works, and when I was 8 years old, we moved to Boston, coming thither on the sailing packer “The Lark,” and taking up our residence Corner Eliot and Nassua streets; Tremont Street from Boylston out, toward the South End, was known as Nassua Street at that time.
I went to the public schools until I was 14, when, in answer to an advertisement in the Boston Palladion, asking for a boy to learn the clock making business, I was accepted by Sarvin and Dyer, whose shop was at the corner of Franklin Avenue and Corn Hill.
I got along quite a while, until one day I was given some money to go buy a pair of shoes for myself; instead, I bought boots which caused my employer to scold me.
This nettled me, so I walked out of the shop and did not stop until I had reached my old home in Barnstable. When I arrived there, I was immediately sent back to Boston, and this time I was bound out to Sarvin and Dyer until I was twenty-one years old.
At 15 I earned my first suit of clothes making a clock for a tailor and shortly afterward I made a clock on a wager made by one of my employers.
I made an eight-day clock, 23% inches long, in 8 hours, 45 minutes. The making of clocks does not differ now from the way in force then; the pallet, pendulum and guide are still made by hand, and while machinery has helped wonderfully, yet to do a nice job even today, it must be done by hand.
When I had been with Sarvin and Dyer for about 2 years, they dissolved partnership, and I went with Mr. Dyer, who had a shop in Joy’s Blvd., near the old State House. Business was not very good, however, and Dyer decided to locate in Utica, N. Y., and I went with him.
So taking all the clock’s works, I put them aboard a sloop and sailed myself with them, all the way to Albany, N`. Y. Then I transferred them to a canal boat and went to Utica that way.
I did not like Utica, so I came back to Boston and went to work for my old employer, John Sarvin, until I should complete my trade.
About this time, I joined the Boston Life Guards and was also a member of the Hero Fire Co. 6, located on Derne Street. The other companies were rather jealous of us, and one day at a fair we did something that offended the Chief.
The result was that Mayor Amory called us all out and discharged us. I went to New York in 1832 and arrived there the day that President Andrew Jackson first visited New York City.
Strange to say, there was not a clockmaker’s shop in that city at that time, so I had to look up some other employment. Just how I came to ship on a whaler, I hardly know, but I did and was so successful I made three trips to the North Pacific Ocean, which occupied 11 years.
On my first voyage, I had as my shipmates both Messrs. Weeks and Porter, who afterwards became the famous Boston druggists. On my second voyage, we tried out 5000 barrels of oil, the largest catch ever on record. On my last, I nearly lost my life by becoming entangled in the line after we had harpooned a whale. As it was he dragged me under water for 20 feet and I swallowed all the sea water I could.
Fortunately, the rope was a new one and the whale letting up a minute, the rope, on account of its newness, slackened easily on my leg which was caught, and it released in a jiffy.
Then I went back to Boston and went to work for J. Beals, a celebrated clockmaker, whose shop was at the corner of Hanover and Blackstone streets. I had known Mr. Howard for years and as soon as he heard I was back in Boston, he sent for me and wanted me to work for him.
And the following year, 1848, I did, at his factory then at the Corner of Hampden and Howard Streets. I think it was in 1849 I built the famous clock for Professor Locke to go into one of the public buildings at Washington, and for which (it is said) Congress appropriated $10,000. In 1851, I went to Nantucket, where my wife came from, and set up a shop there. When in Nantucket, a very severe accident happened to the lighting apparatus of Sankety Light. The machinery had been made in France, and the lighthouse board feared it would have to be sent there for repairs. But much to their relief and delight, I was able to repair it, good as new.
In 1857, I went to New Bedford and had a shop there until the war broke out. Then I enlisted from Nantucket in Co. H. 45 Reg. Col. Eodman commanding.
We sailed from Boston to Newbern, N. C. and at the battle of Whitehall, I was promoted to Sergeant. I was only a nine months? man, and 52 years old; in 1863 I was discharged and came back to Boston.
My wife was Sarah M. Sylvester of Nantucket; she is now dead. We have had 13 children, of whom three daughters and three sons are now alive. Two of my sons are clockmakers. I only use glasses when about my work, and eat well, and sleep well. I still play the violin and sing. I am a member of Thomas A. Stevenson Post 26 G. A. R. and have always voted the Democratic ticket, casting my first vote for Andrew Jackson.
The End
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