The Willard Brothers and the Banjo Clock

In a small workshop in North Grafton, Massachusetts, Benjamin Willard began making clocks in seventeen sixty-six, and his three younger brothers, Simon, Ephraim, and Aaron, quickly learned the trade alongside him. The Willard family became one of the most important clockmaking dynasties in early American history. Simon Willard's greatest contribution came in eighteen oh two, when he received a patent for his Improved Timepiece, a wall-mounted clock with a narrow waist and a round base that Americans soon nicknamed the banjo clock.

Elegant and relatively affordable, it became one of the signature styles of early nineteenth-century American interiors. The original farmhouse and the seventeen sixty-six clock manufactory still stand here in Grafton and now house a museum collection of over ninety Willard clocks, including a number of original banjo clocks. The property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.