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The company was renamed
"Boston Watch Company" in September 1853. A new factory was built in
Waltham, Mass., on the banks of the Charles River, which grew over the
years to its present size. In October 1854 the company moved definitely
to Waltham, Massachusetts. The next movements manufactured (1001-5000)
were marked "Dennison, Howard, & Davis", "P.S.Bartlett", and "C.T.
Parker". Upon bankruptcy, the company was sold at auction to Royal E.
Robbins, who reorganized it under the new name "Appleton Tracy & Co" in
May 1857. Bearing this name, the next movements produced, 1857 models,
were numbered 5001 to 14,000. Also the "C.T. Parker" was introduced as
1857 model: 399 units were made. Also 598 chronometers were
manufactured. January 1853 saw the introduction of the P.S. Bartlett
watch.
The "Waltham Improvement Co." merged in January 1859 with the "Appleton,
Tracy & Co." forming the American Waltham Watch Company (AWWCo). In
1860, as President Abraham Lincoln was elected, the country was in Civil
War. Production ground to a halt. However, the company decided to
downsize to the lowest possible level to keep the factory open. It
worked: Upon his Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln became the proud
owner of a Waltham watch: Model 1857, Grade Wm Ellery, serial number no
67613!
Waltham became the main supplier of Railroad chronometers to the various
railroads in America and in as many as 52 other countries of the world.
In 1876, Waltham disclosed the first automatic screw making machinery
and obtained the first Gold Medal in a watch precision contest at the
Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. Not only the American Horology but
also the world owes much to the early members of the Waltham Watch
entity, such as Bacon, Church, Dennison, Fogg, H. Marsh, Webster and
Woerd for their technical inventions and developments.
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The American Waltham Watch
Company has produced about 40 million high quality watches, clocks,
speedometers, compasses, time fuses and other precision instruments in
about 100 years in U.S.A. Each movement has been engraved with an
individual serial number. You can consult a search engine at /Waltham
Memorial: serial numbers. The Company went out of business in 1957, upon
having founded a subsidiary in Switzerland in 1954, Waltham
International SA, to further Waltham as a Swiss Made Watch Brand |
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