“Horological Treasures from the Willard House and Clock Museum”

Robert C. Cheney, Grafton Massachusetts is a third generation clockmaker, conservator, dealer and consultant. He has lectured extensively in the United States, Canada and the UK and spent a decade as an appraiser on PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. He has provided specialized services to over 50 museums during his career and for this, has received the nation’s highest awards for his many contributions to horology. He is now the Executive Director and Curator of the Willard House and Clock Museum. www.willardhouse.org   

The Willard House and Clock Museum, N. Grafton Massachusetts, is now in its 53^rd year. It is the home of the Willard family of clockmakers, built about 1718. During the last half of the 18^th century, it housed four brothers: Benjamin, Simon, Ephraim and Aaron who began making mechanical clocks in a humble workshop which still stands today. The site is considered the “Birthplace of Early American Clockmaking”, a trade eventually producing the most complicated and expensive luxury in a colonial home. Friends of Presidents, Paul Revere, scientists and other dignitaries, Willard became the best- known name in the trade spanning three generations. The museum holds over 90 Willard clocks, family furnishings, portraits, and the original workshop with period tools and early equipment. It is the largest holding of Willard material anywhere in the world.