Clocks
"Who in Baltimore Was Behind the Concept that Resulted in the Washington Clocks?"
In his seminal piece titled "Going for the Gold, Two French Ormolu Washington Clocks at Classical American Homes Preservation Trust" [1] Peter M. Kenny threw down the gauntlet to all students of George Washington clocks with the following question:
The most intriguing question that remains is, who in Baltimore was behind the concept that resulted in the Dubuc Washington clocks? It is intriguing that this person left the details of creating an appropriate allegory through the use of symbols and devices to Dubuc, a Frenchman. But in the spirit of Lafayette and of France’s support of the American Revolution, he seemed to instinctively know how to stir American patriotism and thus created an enduring American icon.
While raised in 2015, Peter's question has gone unanswered for over two hundred years. These clocks clearly resulted from someone in America collaborating with a "Dubuc" in Paris who had access to an amazingly diverse set craftsman not available in America. But who were these people?
The analysis starts as it should with a basic question: where's the evidence? Unfortunately, there appear to be no existing account books or correspondence tying anyone in America to Dubuc. The only forensic evidence connecting someone in America to Dubuc in Paris is a set of intriguing "letter extracts" that appeared in a series of ads in five American newspapers in the sping of 1815. The ads describe a collaborative desgin process between Dubuc and this mystery person in America, and they raise a number of important questions for scholars and collectors.
The letter extracts, the newspapers they appeared in and their publication dates are set out below. The ads begin the same way by mentioning that a letter from Dubuc came from Paris on the schooner Vixen:
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City Gazette and Daily Advertiser, Charleston, South Carolina, April 7, 1815 (below left)
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The Star, Raleigh, North Carolina, April 7, 1815 (below right)
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The Evening Post, New York City, March 27, 1815, below left
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The United States' Gazette for the Country, Philadelphia, April 1, 1815, below right
The only ad that explicitly states that the letter was received "at Baltimore" appeared in Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser (published in Philadelphia) on March 28, 1815:
It now seems that we are much closer to solving Peter Kenny's "Who Done It" based on important research by Gregory Weidman, Curator at the Hampton National Historic Site. Here are Greg's findings:
My research initially was on Newspapers.com, through which I turned up some very helpful and really interesting information. There might have been even more if Newspapers.com had indexed any of the major Baltimore papers from the 1810s, so I had to rely on accounts from other cities. The main topic I searched for initially was the Vixen, the schooner on which the supposed Dubuc letter arrived in 1815. What turned up were amazing accounts involving letters of marque, ship seizures and mutiny! All this meant that the particulars about the Vixen became big news all over the Eastern US from Vermont to Louisiana.
Several newspaper accounts provide the basic information. The schooner Vixen's home port was Philadelphia (owner unknown). The ship's captain for this voyage was named Risborough. Subsequently, the Vixen was described as being a "private armed" or "letter of marque" schooner, related to privateering during the War of 1812. On March 21, 1815, she arrived in the port of Baltimore after 39 days from Bordeaux, France with a cargo of brandy and dry goods for Henry Payson & Co. of Baltimore. (Much more on Payson later.)
Here's the unusual part of the Vixen's story: In early March off the coast of Cape Hatteras, the British brig Susan (from the West Indies/Cuba bound for Halifax) was spotted. Most of the Vixen's crew, led by first mate Mr. Sharp, wanted to take the Susan as a prize, but Capt. Risborough and the Vixen's passengers were adamant against this action. (Capt. R. probably knew from the French newspapers on board that the war was over.) So, the most of crew mutinied (!), locked Capt. R. in his cabin, and captured the Susan. The mate and majority of the crew then took all the Vixen's weapons, boarded the Susan, and off they went, leaving the folks on the undermanned Vixen to make their way to Baltimore the best they could. When the Susan arrived in Philadelphia on March 27, they discovered that the time for captures had expired. Twelve members of the Vixen's former crew were charged with mutiny. Tried on board the Java in New York harbor, they were convicted of confining the captain on April 22 and sentenced to receive 50 lashes each.
That last paragraph makes for quite a story, but it really has nothing to do with the Dubuc letter business. What is important, however, is the name of the person for whom the Vixen's cargo was intended: Henry Payson (1762-1845). I was immediately familiar with the name, because he was one of the most prominent, civically active, and wealthy merchants in Federal Baltimore. He parleyed the fortune he made in the dry goods and importing businesses into founding banks, including the Bank of Baltimore (1805) and the Union Bank of Baltimore in 1815. He was a director of seven insurance firms. He owned a paper mill and was involved with the manufacture of gunpowder. He was a politician, representing the Second Ward on the Baltimore City Council from 1803-1819 and also serving as council president in the late 1810s.
Three of Payson's activities in the mid-1810s are most significant for the connections he made. First, his company supplied materiel to Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. He was also a member of Baltimore's Committee of Vigilance & Safety, organized in August 1814 to direct the local war effort against the British threat. Immediately after the war, though his city government work he was involved with the planning for Baltimore's Battle Monument, which was begun one year to the day after the Bombardment of Fort McHenry.
In all these roles, Payson would have been working closely with none other than the most famous and highly regarded Frenchman then living in Baltimore: Maximilian Godefroy, the famed architect. Godefroy designed fortifications for Fort McHenry during the War of 1812, plus kept a library of books on military fortifications at his residence on Hanover Street. Immediately after the war, he was selected to be the architect of the Battle Monument to honor those who died in the war. Finally, early in 1817, Godefroy was selected to be the architect for the church to be built for the newly formed congregation for a Unitarian Church in Baltimore. (The magnificent domed structure still survives on N. Charles Street.) The congregation's organizational meeting had been held in February 1817 in the home of...Henry Payson. The final icing on the cake of the Payson-Godefroy connections: they lived less than a block from each other on S. Hanover Street.
That's all I have for now, and I doubt there will ever be a "smoking gun" about the "Extract to the letter from Paris" that arrived on the Vixen. But my money's on Godefroy having been the recipient.[2]
The account of the Vixen can be seen in The Weekly Franklin Repository published in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania on Tuesday, March 21, 1815:
Godefroy's biography aligns well with the narrative of his being the recipient of the Dubuc letter:
J. Maximilian M. Godefroy (1765 – circa 1838) was a French-American architect. Godefroy was born in France and educated as a geographical/civil engineer. During the French Revolution he fought briefly on the Royalist side. Later, as an anti-Bonaparte activist, he was imprisoned in the fortress of Bellegarde and Château d'If then released about 1805 and allowed to come to the United States, settling in Baltimore, Maryland, where he became an instructor in drawing, art and military science at St. Mary's College, the Sulpician Seminary. By 1808, Godefroy had married Eliza Crawford Anderson, editor of her own periodical, the Observer and the niece of a wealthy Baltimore merchant
While in Baltimore, he designed a number of important and famous structures including the St. Mary's Seminary Chapel, (part of the group of academic buildings now demolished 1970 for a park) of St. Mary's Seminary and College along St. Mary's and Orchard Streets in the Seton Hill neighborhood in the northwest city, the Battle Monument, in the old Courthouse Square of the central city (for the defenders and casualties of the British bombardment of Fort McHenry and the Battle of North Point in September 1814, at North Calvert Street, between East Lexington and Fayette Streets, and the First Independent Church of Baltimore (later known as "Unitarian and Universalist" by 1935, at North Charles and West Franklin Streets - in the Mount Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood). Other projects included the Commercial and Farmers Bank (now demolished), as well as the iron gates and monuments in the burial grounds beneath the Westminster Presbyterian Church (at North Greene and West Fayette Streets), the "sally port" (gatehouse) at Fort McHenry, as well as submitting plans for the 1815 design competition for the Washington Monument to be built in Baltimore.
Godefroy became acquainted with well-known British-American architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, (1764-1820), and married Eliza Crawford Anderson, whose father, Dr. John Crawford, was one of the founders of the College of Medicine of Maryland. However, while working with Latrobe on the "Baltimore Merchant's Exchange" (demolished to make way for the new U.S. Custom House in 1902), Godefroy and Latrobe fell out and dissolved the partnership. Latrobe was to have contributed the overall design, while Godefroy was to execute the drawings and supervise construction. Godefroy changed the plans to reflect his own ideas. After parting company, Latrobe continued to credit Godefroy with the design for the front of the Exchange, and did not compete with him for the plans to design the new First Independent Church (Unitarians). Godefroy, however, blamed Latrobe for his inability to obtain further work in Baltimore.
Godefroy left Baltimore in 1819 for England, his daughter dying of yellow fever before the ship had cleared Chesapeake Bay. He worked for a while in London, then moved on to France. Prior to his death in 1838/40, he designed a new wing to the Palais de Justice and the Préfecture, both at Laval, Mayenne, France.
Godefroy designed the famous iconic "Battle Monument" from the recent War of 1812, commemorating the casualties of soldiers and officers from the previous British military attack in the Battle of Baltimore, with the bombardment of Fort McHenry, Battle of North Point, and stand-off at the eastern city fortifications at Loudenschlager's Hill, now Hampstead Hill in Patterson Park, September 12-13-14, 1814, at the old former Baltimore County/Town Courthouse Square on North Calvert Street between East Lexington and East Fayette Streets - constructed 1815 to 1822, and the now landmark First Independent Church of Baltimore, later to become known as the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore (Unitarian and Universalist) at West Franklin and North Charles Streets - 1817.[3]
Godefroy's portrait by Rembrandt Peale hangs in the Maryland Historical Society Museum in Baltimore, Maryland (below left) and was painted circa 1815. Shortly after arriving in Baltimore, Godefroy published a book that was printed in Baltimore in 1807 (below right) titled "Military Reflections on Four Modes of Defence, for the United States, with a Plan of Defence, Adapted to Their Circumstances, and the Existing State of Things" in which he suggested that the United States could improve its preparedness for war by modelling its military institutions on those of France.[4] In the book Godefroy claims to have written to President Jefferson in 1806 about the importance of establishing a "Topographic Office" modeled after France's Topographic Bureau to better plan for offensive and defensive battle contingencies.
Godefroy wrote a letter to James Madison on January, 12, 1806,[4] in which he expressed an interest in accepting a permanent teaching position at St. Mary's College in Baltimore, and hoped that Madison remembered Godefroy's visit with Madison in Philadelphia the previous summer.[5] Godefroy taught at St. Mary’s College in Baltimore for 12 years until 1817, where Dolley Madison’s son John Payne Todd was enrolled.[6]
Godefroy designed the Battle Monument (below left) that's located in Battle Monument Square in Baltimore. Built 1815-1825, it commemorates the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812. In July of 1816, Godefroy was commissioned by the Governor and Council of Virginia to repair the Capitol and embellish the Capitol Square.[7] Three years before he left Baltimore and moved to England, Godefroy wrote to Thomas Jeferson in October 12, 1816 asking to buy Jefferson's Natural Bridge in the Shenandoah[8], which is pictured below in Frederick Edwin Church's famous painting.[9]
In 1810, Godefroy made several drawings for a design competition for the Washington Monument that was to be built in an urban square in the center of Baltimore at the intersection of Mount Vernon Place and Washington Place.{VV] Although Godefroy's design wasn't chosen, the frieze on one of his drawings seen below is highly reminiscnet of the frieze used on the base of many of the clocks:
In attempting to place a later date on the fabrication of the Washington clocks Peter Kenny noted that:
Until recently, dating of the Washington clocks, especially when they are thought of as memorial clocks, has tended to be in the first decade of the 1800s, closer to the actual death of George Washington. All of [the] 1815 references offer evidence that the Washington clocks were marketed in America from France for the first time to celebrate the United States’ glorious victory in the war of 1812 and the ensuing peace after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. In this context the Washington clocks can be read as allegories for a renewed sense of national purpose and identity, as well harbingers of the next chapter in American political life: the Era of Good Feelings, a period associated with the years of the Monroe presidency (1817-1825) and marked by a national mood of unity (E Pluribus Unum) and the lack of partisan factions. We had fought one revolution for our political freedom and now another for our commercial freedom. And Washington, the father of our nation, whose exploits and attributes were already engraved in the minds of all Americans, stood in 1815 as the great unifying symbol of the nation.
Godefroy's involvement in the defense of Baltimore during the War of 1812 (he designed fortifications for Fort McHenry) as well as his design of the Battle Monument to honor those who died in the war aligns well with Peter Kenny's assertion that the Washington clocks: "...can be read as allegories for a renewed sense of national purpose and identity." While there currently isn't any forensic evidence directly linking Godefroy to Dubuc, the circumstantial evidence makes him the best candidate to fill the shoes as Dubuc's joint venturer.
Despite the probable link to Godefroy, there are a number of inconsistencies with the five letter "extracts" that further compound the mystery:
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The correct spelling of street where Dubuc worked in Paris is Comte, not Compte as it appeared in the newspapers:
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If this "extract" is from a letter written by Dubuc to someone like Godefroy who spoke French, would Dubuc have spelled his own work address incorrectly?
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It's not a typsetter's error, the misspelling is in all five of the newspaper ads.
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If Godefroy met with Dubuc before he left Paris in 1805, or on a subsequent visit, wouldn't he know his partner's correct work address and have proofed the copy, especially when the spelling of "Compte" in the ads differs from the correct address used on the clock dials which is "Comte."
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It is possible that Godefroy hadn't seen the the dial signatures because he hadn't taken delivery at this point, but then again, why advertise if you have no product on hand to sell?
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Alternatively, was the clock project the result of a joint venture, with Godefroy being responsible for design and someone like his wealthy neighbor Henry Payson being responsible for the marketing and distribution?
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If Dubuc's letter to Godefroy was in French, the inconsistencies could be explained by someone like a Payson simply taking liberties with the translation.
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"en face Le Bureau des Hypotheques" appears just below Dubuc's signature in the five newspaper ads pictured above:
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Loosely translated "en face Le Bureau des Hypotheques" means "opposite the Mortgage Office."
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Dubuc's workshop at 33 Rue Michel-le-Comte was in fact across the street from the "Bureau des Hypotheques" (aka "mortgage office") which was at 32 Rue Michel-le-Comte, so that part of the "letter extracts" is correct.
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The "Bureau des Hypotheques" was the government office where property information was recorded for real estate located in Paris.[10]
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This must have been a busy and well known Parisian landmark, but why was this thought to be sufficiently important to mention, first in a letter and then again in the ads themselves, as American customers weren't likely to goto Paris to seek out Dubuc.
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Is this analogous to someone putting "right across from the bank" on a business card to make it easier for customers to find? More on this further on.
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The image below left is from the 1815 edition of the "Almanach du commerce de Paris" and indicates that the "Conservateur des Hypotheques" (M. Fidiere) was at Number 32 Michel-le-Comte.[11]
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The image on the right is from Charles Lefeuve's "Ancient Houses of Paris" (Volume 4, 1875) and references a "L'hotel des Hypotheques" at 32 Michel le Comte.[12]
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"Aine" is used in the ads as opposed to it's proper spelling in French which is "L'Aine" (aka oldest brother).
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Would someone like Dubuc who speaks French drop the "L"? Would Godefroy?
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The answer appears to be yes based on the dial signature that omits the "L" pictured below that's from the clock on the right that was made of the French market:
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In the Charleston Ad, "Clocks" is (surprisingly) spelled "Ckocks" but it spelled correctly in the Raleigh Ad
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The Raleigh Ad:
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Bureau is spelled incorreactly: "beareau."
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Intrinsic is spelled incorrectly: "intrinsick."
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Horloger is spelled incorrectly: "harloger."
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The Raleigh Ad doesn't mention the smaller clocks as the Charleston Ad does, which raises an interesting question: why would you eliminate a more affordable price point/entry level product that could potentially broaden your customer base?
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Also, the "French Ingenuity" banner is missing and "schooner" is abbreviated.
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If pricing in The Star was by the column inch, was a business decision was made to cut content to minimize cost?
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Surprisingly, there appear to be no ads placed in Baltimore or Annapolis papers, and the significance of this is discussed below.
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The ads imply that the images were sourced in Paris by "...searching the Louvre, galleries and hotels" which may be the case as Lara Pascali's research indicated that print images based on the Trumbull painting were circulating in Paris at this time.[13]
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"I pray, sir, that you will acquaint your gallant countrymen of this national and elegant piece of furniture."
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Why use the word "furniture" to describe a clock?
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Furniture derives from the French "fourniture" which means equipment, whereas the French word "meubles" is used to describe home furnishings.
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With this understanding, it's internally consistent to see Dubuc's use of the word "fourniture/furniture" to describe a piece of equipment like a clock.
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"French Ingenuity" banner:
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Merrian-Webster defines "ingenuity" as "skill or cleverness in devising or combining" which makes sense from the perspective of Dubuc's combining all of the decorative elements of the clocks.
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"The mantel clocks are completed"
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This implies that Dubuc made a batch: were they shipped or still in France when the ads went to print? Again, why advertise if you have no product on hand to sell?
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The ads also imply there was no customization at this point in time: there were two sizes and customers would have to take what's made, and likely wait for the smaller clocks to arrive.
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If there was no customization, how do we account for Dubuc's Winterthur clock in Entry #1, and does this point to a later production date for the Winterthur clock?
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From the newspaper accounts mentioned above, we know that the Vixen arrived in Baltimore from Bordeaux on March 21st, 1815, with a cargo of brandy and dry goods for Henry Payson & Co. located in Baltimore.
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Given that the letter extracts appeared in the various newspapers in March and April of 1815, it's tempting to speculate that Dubuc's first batch of clocks was in the Vixen's hold.
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"...they are equal in elegance and intrinsic value to any work of the kind and price, ever executed in this city."
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Anyone with a passing knowledge of French mantle clocks of the period knows that the George Washington design is tame when compared with some of the elaborate designs being created in Paris at that point in time.
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Interestingly, no ads have been discovered in Baltimore or Annapolis newspapers.
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Did Godefroy and a possible joint venterurer from Baltimore like Payson conclude that none were necessary because they had that market sewn up?
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Prior scholarship has taken it at face value that this newspaper content was "extracted" from a letter Dubuc composed. When the layers are peeled back however, is it possible that Godefroy or an associate like Payson took liberties with Dubuc's letter and engaged in writing some creative advertising copy? Stated differently, were the ads sophisticated product placement intending to masquerade as news. Let's look at the evidence again in that light.
It has been noted that:
In the early 1800s, newspaper publishing bore little resemblance to the business it is today. Most newspapers had a small circulation, and were staffed by a very small number of workers. Division of labor in the newspaper publishing process – newsgathering and reporting, editing, and printing–was uncommon, though it became more so as the period progressed. Even in the larger, urban newspapers, the owner of the paper would usually serve as the reporter and editor. Apprentices often assisted with printing and delivery. Most newspapers reprinted articles from other newspapers, and expected that their own articles would be reprinted elsewhere.[14]
Founded in 1734, the Maryland Gazette and Political Intelligencer was published in Annapolis, and is one of the country's oldest newspapers. Back issues from the early 1800's are available online[15] and provide valuable insights for researchers into how news was reported in the early 1800's when the clocks were being manufactured and distributed. Like many papers of the day, the Gazette ulitized a news hierachry that governed where items appeared in the paper. Official business of the US government typically came first (e.g., new laws, court cases, administrative appointments, etc.) which was followed international developments and state level business, which was then followed by what would today be considered classified ads, e.g., goods for sale , notices of auctions and public sales, rewards for runaways, real estate and livestock sales, etc.
Dubuc's "letter extract" never appeared in the Maryland Gazette (a point discussed further on), but it did appear in Charleston's City Gazette and Daily Advertiser on April 7, 1815. The City Gazette generally followed the same news format that Maryland Gazette used: National news first, followed by international developments and state business, followed by classified ads. This can be seen in the April 7th broadsheet set out below where Dubuc's "letter extract" is highlighted in yellow:
What conclusions can be drawn based on this evidence? Like most newspapers from the period, Charleston's City Gazette used the "letter extract" convention as a tool to introduce news stories, as can be seen below, but rarely (if ever) was the letter extact format used to market commercial goods. The hawking of goods was typically relegated to the back of the paper where the classified ads appeared:
Returning to the broadside, the editor of the paper decided to place Dubuc's "FRENCH INGENUITY" piece in the section of the paper dealing with "FOREIGN SELECTIONS" highlighted in red in the broadsheet above. This included stories about an altercation in Paris between the Duke of Wellington and Marshall McDonald, cost overruns maintaining the British Royal household, the Spanish Ambassador trying to mend relations with the US Secretary of State and the potential for the Viennese Congress to dissolve itself. The creation of and pricing for a clock is not the sort of international "news" that generally was included in the Foreign Relations/International News section papers in that time period.
Again, is it possible that the ad copy was not merely "extracted" but also "adapted" from Dubuc's letter by Godefroy or even a Payson? Consider the following:
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Was the addition of "en face Le Bureau des Hypotheques" "Aine horloger" and the Paris address "rue Michel Le Compte" below Dubuc's signature line intended to inject a measure of French marketing mystique, the same of which can be said about the inclusion of Dubuc's Parisian address on the clock dials?
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As noted in the section labled "Dials"
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The ad claims that the images for the Washington "statue" were sourced in Paris by "...searching the Louvre, galleries and hotels" (again playing to French design sensibilities), but that doesn't appear to be accurate given the American design sources previously discussed.
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The use of "...they are equal in elegance and intrinsic value to any work of the kind and price, ever executed in this city" indicates an intention to assure buyers that they were getting a quality product for a reasonable price.
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"I pray, sir, that you will acquaint your gallant countrymen of this national and elegant piece of furniture" is a clear product push.
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Is dropping the "L" from "L'Aine" and its placement on the line below "Dubuc" something Dubuc or Godefroy would have done?
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The incorrect spelling of street where Dubuc worked (Comte vs Compte) is hard to square if Godefroy visited Dubuc's shop in Paris, especially so if dial signatures were discussed, but more so if Godefroy discussed the dial signature with Dubuc and had a clock in hand.
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The phrase "French Ingenuity" appeared in the ad in the Charleston newspeper, which begs the question whether Dubuc would have used this phrase or whether this was an editorial/publisher's choice. If it wasn't, could it have been yet another attempt to appeal to American consumer tastes leveraging the notoriety of the Vixen's involvement with the mutiny on the Susan?
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Finally, if Godefroy was responsible for design and someone with deep pockets like his neighbor Henry Payson was responsible for the marketing, it is possible that the discrepancies noted above were simply the result of things being lost in translation. Godefroy's book ("Military Reflections on Four Modes of Defence, for the United States, with a Plan of Defence, Adapted to Their Circumstances, and the Existing State of Things") had to be translated by Eliza Anderson:
[1] Going for the Gold, Two French Ormolu Washington Clocks at Classical American Homes Preservation Trust
[2] Email exchange with the author.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Godefroy
[5]MESDA's Craftsman Database mentions a "Maximilian Godefroy" having been listed in two New Orleans Directories as an "artist/architect" in 1807-1809: https://mesda.org/item/craftsman/godefroy-maximilian/13398/
[6] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/02-11-02-0052
[7] Robert L. Alexander, The Architecture of Maximilian Godefroy, Johns Hopkins Studies in Nineteenth-Century Architecture [Baltimore, 1974.]
[7] https://mesda.org/item/craftsman/godefroy-maximilian/13399/
[8] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-10-02-0329
[9] The War of 1812 Magazine, Issue 15: May 2011.
[10] "The conservation of mortgages, sometimes referred to as the 'mortgage offic,' was a French administrative and fiscal institution of the Direction générale des Finances publiques (formerly the Direction générale des Impôts (DGI)). There were 354 in France.
They were abolished by virtue of Ordinance No. 2010-638 of June 10, 2010 and replaced by the land registration services , which retain the same powers." (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_des_hypoth%C3%A8ques)
[13] Lara Pascali, "Desirable to the Patriots, French Washington Clocks for the American Market" pages 7-8.
[14] American Newspapers, 1800-1860: An Introduction, https://www.library.illinois.edu/hpnl/tutorials/antebellum-newspapers-introduction/
[15] https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc4800/sc4872/001287/html/index.html
[VV] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument_(Baltimore)
