When I was a kid, I always wondered how people knew when to get up. Oh, I knew they had clocks, all right. The big old Grandfather clocks with the bellowing chimes, the smaller Grandmother clocks, the mantel clocks. But what about alarm clocks? Over the years I’ve learned a lot more about clocks of all kinds, including the fact that if you’re still using an electric clock plugged into an outlet, it had better have a battery back-up.
On the other hand, does anybody use those anymore? I know mine must be forty years old. Still works like a champ, too, ye old clock-radio.
I know, I know. EVERYBODY uses the alarm on their smart phone. Except me. I don’t even know how to set it. Oh, well. I haven’t needed it since I seem to have a clock in my head.
Some of the best clocks, in my experience, are well-trained cats or dogs. Surprisingly, the cat was better. I had the duty to rise at 4:30 every morning in order to be on the job at 6:00 a.m. And since it takes a while to make myself presentable, I needed every bit of that hour and a half. Because I’m a bit of a worry-wart, I always tried to be at work fifteen minutes early. After twenty years of this, to this day I wake up at 4:30, although nobody had better plan on me rising and shining. Ain’t gonna happen. But for over sixteen years, my wake-up call came via a small furry foot patting my chin, and points little toes tromping across my chest. Thanks to Lily, I was never late.
(Yes, in case anybody ever wondered. The heroine in Hereafter is named Lily, a tribute to my sweet blue Persian.)
But on to China Bohannon. What got her up on time in the morning, when the dark dawn and the icy temperatures in her bedroom screamed ‘stay in bed?’
This is what I discovered.
The earliest mechanical clock recorded is a Chinese Water Clock, invented around 725.
Smaller, individual clocks were probably of German manufacture in the 15th Century, although it’s doubtful they had a total monopoly on them. The first known mechanical American clock was put in use by Levi Hutchins in 1787, although some people contest this story. The first patent was recorded in 1847.
Few people owned reliable mechanical clocks in those early years. They relied on servants, church bells, their own innate time sense, or the sun to get them up. Later, factory whistles worked for urbanites. I’ve got a question though. Who got the servants, the bells-ringers or the factory workers up?
Seth Thomas mass produced alarm clocks beginning in 1876. To me, looking like a pure mess of gears, rotating cams, levers, notches and bells, clock innards are a mysterious business. Clockmakers, however, say there’s nothing truly difficult about these old clocks. You could’ve fooled me. I probably would’ve relied on Knocker-uppers, a profession that remained until the 1920s, where someone was hired to knock on one’s door, window or whatever and rouse him or her. Seriously.
The clock China Bohannon no doubt uses⏤at least when her dog Nimble doesn’t awaken her⏤is probably a Seth Thomas, sitting serene and ticking away on her bedside table, along with her .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver.
