Eli Terry, Sr. (1772-1852) | Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project

Detail of Eli Terry from an engraving by Samuel Sartain from The History of Waterbury Connecticut by Henry Bronson

Eli Terry, Sr. (1772-1852)

Eli Terry is considered the father of the American mass-production clock industry. Born in East Windsor in 1772, Terry apprenticed himself to clockmaker Daniel Burnap at age 14 before opening his own business in 1793. Four years later, Terry received the first clock patent granted by the United States Patent Office—one of 10 such patents awarded to Terry during his lifetime. By both mass-producing popular wooden shelf clocks, as well as designing more sophisticated brass-geared clocks for sale overseas, Eli Terry helped make the area later renamed Terryville the leading clock-making center in the United States by the time of the Revolutionary War.

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