Terry, Eli

Terry, Eli

(born April 13, 1772, East Windsor, Conn.—died Feb. 26, 1852, Plymouth, Conn., U.S.) U.S. clockmaker. He made a specialty of one-day wooden shelf clocks, especially his “perfected wood clock” known as the Terry clock (1814). Using interchangeable parts made by mechanized techniques, production at his Plymouth factory rose to as high as 10,000–12,000 Terry clocks per year.

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Terry, Eli (1772–1852) inventor, clock manufacturer; born in East Windsor, Conn. After an apprenticeship (1786–92), he made his first clocks by hand. He turned to using water power to drive his tools (1800) when he established the U.S.A.'s first clock factory in Plymouth, Conn. In 1807 he formed a partnership with Seth Thomas and their factory eventually produced 10,000–12,000 clocks per year. Terry himself patented ten improvements in clockworks and introduced several popular innovations in clock design.