Edward A. Locke had long been seeking a simple watch adapted to easy manufacture and a selling price of three to four dollars. While on a trip to Washington his attention was drawn to the Hopkins watch by William D. Colt of Washington.[8] A result of this meeting appears to have been the issuance to Jason 54 R. Hopkins of two patents,[9] in both of which half rights were assigned to William D. Colt. Patent 165831, relates to a barrel arbor for watches. The arbor will be seen (fig. 4) to consist of two parts, one telescoped within the other and the composite arbor B-C supported at each end by the frame of the watch. The patent text limits itself to a bare description of the arbor. In the light of what we have seen of the shortcomings of the original model, however, the patent drawings tell that much more had been accomplished on the general design of a more workable rotary watch.

A square on arbor C at the back of the watch permits winding the main spring, which attaches to the largest diameter of C, a ratchet or winding click being supplied just under support F. The inner or front part B of the composite arbor projects from the front of the movement and revolves at the speed of the barrel arbor, which speed is not specified. Also, looking at the perspective view, we see that while the chronometer escapement has been retained, the balance has been placed eccentrically to make room for the center arbor. The balance now describes an orbit around the center of revolution. No driving train is shown, it being irrelevant to the patent, but there seems to be ample room for two intermediate wheels and their pinions between the escape wheel and the train cock boss, seen at the upper right in the perspective view of figure4. Adding one more wheel and pinion to the train would have the effect of reducing the number of revolutions required of the spring barrel. We have seen from examination of the patent model of the Hopkins rotary that this was necessary not only to reduce the number of turns of the main spring and barrel but also to reduce the force transmitted to the escapement. There seems little reason from the foregoing observations and considerations to doubt that these modifications had been realized by the time of this patent. Again no dial gearing is shown. If the need for special gearing existed at this time it seems strange that it was not covered by patent as was done in the later patent[10] assigned to William B. Fowle. The only way to avoid special gearing would be to revolve the barrel and train each hour so that the minute hand could travel with them as it travels with the center wheel in conventional watches. Once this condition was set up, the usual dial gearing would apply.

Companion patent 165830 (see fig. 5) covers a mechanism to prevent overbanking of the balance wheel, primarily of a chronometer escapement. This, of course, was aimed at making it possible to use the escapement in connection with a mainspring of greatly varying power. We have seen that this condition of uneven power existed in the first Hopkins watch. While the condition was greatly improved in the second model (seen in fig. 4), it was surely present to some extent, as it is associated with every spring. Overbanking protection may well have continued to be necessary, particularly if the gear ratio between escapement and barrel was low enough to permit hourly rotation of the barrel. The features covered by this patent were originally submitted as part of what later became patent 165831. Examination of the original manuscript patent file[11] shows that the patent application was separated into two on the suggestion of the patent examiner, who pointed out that two distinct and separate mechanisms were involved, either of which could be used without the other.

These two patents, which actually started out as one, appear to represent the watch as it was when Hopkins went to Waterbury, Connecticut, where he again met Edward A. Locke. They submitted this improved watch model to the Benedict and Burnham Manufacturing Co., which advised not manufacturing it until it was further developed. Hopkins went with his watch from there to Boston, where he conferred with George Merritt who, like Locke, was interested 55 in getting into the manufacture of a low-priced watch. Merritt may have been the senior member of the Locke-Merritt team or may simply have had more faith than his associates in Hopkins and his watch. At any rate, he advanced expense money while further efforts at improvement were made.[12] Hopkins’ absence from the Washington city directory of 1877 is perhaps explained by this work he was doing on his patent. While this was completed to Hopkins’ satisfaction, it still fell short of Merritt’s idea of practicality, and the latter abandoned the idea of manufacturing the watch;[13] what had started out as a very simple watch of few parts grew, with every effort to make it workable, more and more complicated by involved and expensive detail. It appears that Hopkins did not possess the rare gift of improvement by simplification. This is a rare gift, and one seldom possessed by an individual very closely and intensely involved in the minute details of a given problem.

How long this period of development and experimentation required is unreported. It could hardly have started before early June of 1875, when application was made for the patent (165830) to prevent overbanking. The cash book of William B. Fowle of Auburndale, Massachusetts,[14] tells us that he bought half of William D. Colt’s half-interest in the Hopkins rotary in March 1876, partly for cash but including a royalty on each watch made. Half this royalty was to go to Hopkins, a quarter to William D. Colt, and a quarter to William B. Fowle. Does patent 179019, issued June 20, 1876, to Hopkins, who assigned it on June 10, 1876, to Fowle,[15] represent the last improvement offered to Merritt? It covers a device actuated by a spur on a balance staff to lock the detent against tripping when in one position and to permit normal operation of the chronometer escapement when in the other position (see fig. 6). Another patent applied 56 for on January 12, 1876, was in prospect and finally issued as no. 186838 on January 30, 1877, assigned to William B. Fowle on November 21, 1876.[16] This is much the most practical and useful patent in the series. A comparison of these (see figs. 7 and 8) with the Auburndale rotary watch (see fig. 9) shows a remarkable similarity between the inventor’s conception and the product eventually manufactured. A practical center arbor to support and guide the entire rotating mechanism is here combined with a stem-winding and lever-setting mechanism and dial gearing in a well thought out arrangement.

Here, where the story of the Hopkins watch diverges from the interests who later brought out the rival Waterbury watch, it seems appropriate to call the reader’s attention to the basic points of novelty and merit in the Hopkins watch which carried over to what became the Waterbury, somewhat as an hereditary characteristic passes from generation to generation. Previous writers have realized that one of these watches led to the other and have grouped them together because of the rotating feature which they shared in common. Beyond this point they have treated the watches as though they had nothing in common. Actually several basic features of the Hopkins watch existed in both: the long narrow spring in a barrel approximately filling one side of the watch case, a train rotating in the center of the watch and driven by a planetary pinion in mesh with a gear fixed to the stationary part of the watch, a slow beat escapement, and probably the hourly rotation of the train and escapement. When these details appeared in the first watches manufactured for Messrs. Locke and Merritt by the Benedict and Burnham Manufacturing Co. and later the Waterbury Watch Co., they were vastly changed in detail and much better adapted to mass production, although still basically the same.

The story of Hopkins’ rotary watch now enters an entirely new setting with new financial backing which, however, had no apparent experience or background 57 in mechanical work, much less watch manufacturing. Those with watchmaking experience who were brought into this new organization unquestionably did their best, based on past experience confined to conventional watches of much higher grade. Judging from the products turned out, however, they had great difficulty in making a clean break with their past and in producing a satisfactory low-priced watch of new and radical concept. The market for watches, which had been depressed, was at this time reviving a little. The Newton Journal,[17] referring to the American Watch Co. at Waltham reported: “The hands employed in the caseroom and the machinists have been called in. All the works are to be started the first of September.”