Joseph Ives
Joseph Ives (1782-1862)
The story begins with Amasa Ives Sr.
Ruins of Amasa Ives' mill
Amasa Ives Senior (1748-1817) was born to Gideon Ives Jr. of Bristol. Amasa’s family house plot was on Federal Hill near the Congregational Church. His Uncle Elnathan lived in the Terry Homestead on Middle Street.
The Ives family owned large portions of land in the Edgewood/Polkville section of Bristol.
Amasa Ives married Huldah Shailor and had ten children.
Huldah, Ira, Philo and Philotheta (twins), Joseph, Shailor, Chauncey, Amasa Jr., Piera, and Philotheta II.
Amasa Ives ran a gristmill off of Maple Ave where he constructed a large dam with two smaller retaining ponds. In 1788 William Jerome II with his brother Benjamin purchased interest in the mill. It was sold to Joseph Ives in 1815 and probably not used very long, as he operated shops in other places around town. By the 1830s the mill was converted into the Bartholomew Clock Factory. In the 1870s a hardware factory operated on the site. By the 1890s Stanley Works purchased the building and used it as a drill bit and auger brace factory. The building burned to ashes in 1918.
Three views of the old Ives mill, where Joseph made clocks in 1815.
Amasa Ives Jr. and Company
After a contract with Titus Merriman of Maple Street in 1808, brothers Amasa Ives Jr., Joseph Ives, and Philo Ives opened up a small shop probably around Federal Street making clocks under the firm Amasa Ives Jr. and Company. Eight-day wooden movement tall clocks with roller pinions. The transaction offered the right to raise the level of the river one foot high for the use of water power, for the manufacture of buttons and other wares.
Left: This pewter button was found on Fall Mountain in Bristol and dates to about 1800-1820. There is a high probability that this button was turned in the Ives shop.
Collection of Tom Vaughn
Right: This 8-day wooden movement clock was made by Amasa Ives Jr. and Company
Collection of Tom Vaughn, Gift of Thomas Manning, 2018
Joseph Ives- venturing off
After leaving the firm with his brothers, Ives had several business ventures throughout the community. In 1811 he opened a new shop on the Coppermine Brook on Frederick Street. He moved the shop his father's mill on Maple Ave in 1815. By 1817 he bought the old Roberts shop in the south end of town and moved operations there. During this time Ives began his career producing some of the most experimental timepieces in the country.
His success from his experimental spring and mirror clocks persuaded him to relocate to Brooklyn New York in 1822.
Right: This photo shows the Terry and Andrews clock factory on Frederick Street in 1856. This is the site where Joseph Ives built his first independent clock shop. He sold the site to Elisha Manross who would become a clock maker 20 years later.
Photo from Bristol in the Olden Times New Cambridge.
Brooklyn New York
Ives was advertised living on Poplar Street in Brooklyn as a clock manufacturer. Here he began full production of experimental spring clocks. The venture was not the most successful. He almost immediately declared himself insolvent and spends the rest of the 1820s facing debtors prison.
By the later 1820s, the clock industry began to significantly expand in Bristol. In 1830 Ives returned to Bristol.
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The 1830s saw more experimental clocks produced by Ives. Ives designed the type A strap brass roller-pinion movement, which was the first readily available mass produced brass clock produced in the region. At this time wooden clocks were still the predominant production in other clock shops.
By 1842 Ives again declared bankruptcy. His bail was offered by John Birge, a friend and local manufacturer. In 1845, Ives' patent wagon spring clocks were being produced by John Birge and Thomas Fuller. The use of Ives' patent by Birge was likely a courtesy for the bailout in 1842.
Birge & Fuller made these clocks for several years until the use of coiled springs became more readily available.
In order to make up for the loss of profit from Birge & Fuller, Ives goes into business with the Atkins Whiting & Company to produce cast iron frame wagon spring clocks. After a disagreement in 1855, the production of these clocks ceased- bankrupting the Atkins Company.
Ives' last venture in clock making was with N. L Brewster and E. Ingraham, making tin-plate shelf clocks using Ives' patent.
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The companies which thrived on the use of Joseph Ives' Patents would expand, dissolve, reorganize, etc. into the many other clock industries which flourished in Bristol, then throughout the state. Over 275 clock companies operated in Bristol from 1795-1980. Joseph Ives had first-hand interactions with majority of these industries.
He died insolvent in 1862 at 80 years old.
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By the 1860s the clock industry in Connecticut had expanded and evolved significantly since Ives' early days in the first quarter of the century. The need for Ives' innovations and patents died down with the evolving horological advances. The last use of an Ives patent in Bristol was from 1864-1870, when Welch, Spring & Company used the strap frame movements (developed in the 1830s). E. N. Welch would later become the first millionaire in the city of Bristol. His industrial successors would be the Sessions family. By the later 19th-century, inventors like Albert Rockwell would develop the first ball-bearing in Bristol. Silver companies, brass companies, and other clock industries would come out of Bristol and relocate to Meriden, Waterbury, New Haven, etc. and Connecticut would become one of the largest manufacturing regions in the world.
Return to Bristol
Finding Joseph Ives' Home
The following was found in the Episcopal Church Records:
“1862: Voted to secure the lot of one acre and three rods on which the house stands known as the late Joseph Ives Place. Voted Franklin Downes and Herald J. Potter to be a committee to confer with Henry A. Seymour and secure said lot.”
“Special meeting in 1862: The purchase of said house and lot was authorized; the clerk instructed as to loans and mortgage deed. Instructions issued for the sale of present lot and church building.”
“March 1863 at the old church building: to consider finances as applied to the now completed new church building."
The site of this church was on the corner of Main Street and High Street. Joseph Ives' house was demolished to make way for this church. The church burned in the later 19th-century and was replaced with a new one on the back lot (The new church also burned later on).
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Left: This picture is one of the earliest images of Main Street, looking North. The Episcopal Church is visible on the right. This is where Joseph Ives' home stood. Bristol Music and C. V. Mason occupies the site today.
Image Courtesy of Bristol Historical Society
Right: This is the foundation of the second church built on the site, now converted into storage space, visible from High Street.
Image by Tom Vaughn, 2019
Citations and Credits
Primary sources on Ives, transactions, deeds, etc. are sourced from Kenneth D. Roberts' "The Contributions of Joseph Ives to Connecticut Clock Technology, 1810-1862", (Published by the American Clock and Watch Museum, 1970).
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Ives' timeline information was aided in research by Ives expert James B. Dubois, through his scholarly research study in 2019.
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Episcopal Church records documented in "Bristol in the Olden Times New Cambridge", Smith et al. 1907. Page 318
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Joseph Ives transaction records documented in "Bristol in the Olden Times New Cambridge", Smith et al. 1907. Page 256, 355, and 518.
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Photos of current historic sites and artifacts by Tom Vaughn, January, 2019
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Photo of Main Street, collection of Bristol Historical Society.
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Photos of the Amasa Ives mill in 1907, from "Bristol in the Olden Times New Cambridge", Smith et al. 1907. Page 406.
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Photos of the Terry and Andrews Clock Factory (1856) where Joseph Ives had his first private clock shop, from "Bristol in the Olden Times New Cambridge", Smith et al. 1907. Page 339
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Special thanks to James B. Dubois, Tom Manning, and Mary Jane Dapkus for research and assistance.
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