Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 1
Some time since I had the happyness of receiving a Letter from you,1 accquainting me of your Safe arrivall at Lunenburg. I don't wonder at the confusion of Tho'ts you find on entring on a state, and conversation, so different from what you have hitherto known; but I hope Use (that sovereign accommodator of circumstances) will soon bring your tho'ts to their usual calmness and serenity.
I can't express to you, how much I find wanting your Company. Invain I now draw scemes and Calculations since the Person who was the best judge of them is remov'd from me! I congratulate you on your commencing the Lunenburg Oracle may all your decisions be the Dictates of Apollo.
Mr: Brown2 has got an old publick Clock to repair which has lain 20 or 30 Years useless, in a corner of Dr: Cuttler's Church.3 It is a ballance Clock, but is now to be alter'd into a long Pend[ulu]m. Knowing your genious for Clock-work, I have herewith sent you the old Numbers of this Clock, and also my new calculation, according to which I suppose it will be now alter'd.
We had a rumour here in Town last week that you was ill of the Throat-69Distemper which gave us very great uneasyness, but since that (some auspitious plannet reigning) we heard that you only had a Cold. May the Father of Mercy still be your kind protecter, is the prayer of your sincere Friend,
The numbers of the old Clock are as follows;
The Striking-part. The first Wheel (abt. 2 foot diameter has 80 teeth, and 10 Pins for drawing the Hammer; a Port Pinion of 10, Count-wheel 78. The 2d. Wheel 48, with a Pin: on its arbour of 8. Fly Pinion 6.
Watch-Part. First Wheel (about as large as the former) of too teeth to go round once in an hour, with a pin in it for lifting the Detents. The 2d. Wheel was the Ballance wheel, it had 39 teeth and its pinion was 7. The Pinion of report was 6, and Dial W: 72.
I have calculated the Watch part as follows. (Vizt.) The old Wheel of 100 now to go round once in 2 Houres and consequently 2 pins for lifting the Detents. The next Wheel and Pinion to be new, the pinion to, the W: 49, and then the old Ballance arbour and pinion of 7 to have a Swing W: of 36 fixt on to it, now the work being so fixt requires 5040 beats of a Pendulum, in once round of the great W:; which will be perform'd exactly by a Pendulum of 80 Inches, a Pendm. of that length vibrates 42 times in a Minute, or 5040 in 2 Houres. Now this Watch part will require but 15 turns of the barrell, to go 30 houres, and consequently the line will not wind one round over the other on the Barrell as formerly. Instead of the old Port Pinion of 6, there must be one of 12, to play in the Dial W: of 72.
P:S. Mr: Palmer, and Wife give their service to you, as doth Mr: Brown also.
| 10)78(7,8 | 12) 72(6 | |||
| Clock Part | {8) 80(10} | Watch Part New | {10)100(10 | --10 |
| 6) 48( 8 | 7) 49( 7 | -- 7 | ||
| S 36 W | 70 | |||
| 6) 72(12 | 36 | |||
| The old Watch part | {7)100(14 2/7} | 420 | ||
| B 39 W | 210 | |||
| 2520 | ||||
| 2 | ||||
| 5040 |
The old Ballance apears to have vibrated about 1114 times in an Hour.70
Not located.
Gawen Brown 1719–1800, clockmaker, who came to Boston from England about 1749 (David Hansen, "Gawen Brown, Soldier and Clockmaker," Old Time New England 30[1939]: 1–9; see also Charles Knowles Bolton, "Some Notes on Gawen Brown's Family," New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 64[1933]: 317–322).
In a draft of this letter in the Paine Papers the old clock is referred to as "a large old Church clock." It was undoubtedly stored in Christ Church, where Timothy Cutler (1684–1765) was minister (Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 5:45–66).
Tho' in A great Hurry yet the Love I bear towards you constrains me to write a few lines to you which you must recieve as the forerunner of a more correct Epistle hereafter; for in short att present I am in the midd
P: S Write to me by the bearer who will Come out to Day.
A reference to Abigail's recent marriage to Joseph Greenleaf on Oct. 17, 1749, at Boston.