: The Auburndale Watch Company First American Attempt Toward the Dollar Watch by Battison Edwin A - Auburndale Watch Company (Auburndale Mass.); Clock and watch making United States

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Jason R. Hopkins, inventor of the first Auburndale product, passed away in Washington late the same year, 1902, having spent all the intervening years as a watchmaker.

Records of Veterans Administration, pension application WE 666 675 of Mary E. Fowle .

Serial 926, in author's collection.

Each model of watch made at Auburndale was numbered in its own series, starting at number 1, contrary to the usual watch factory practice where blocks of serial numbers are assigned to different models. Other Auburndale products seem not to have borne serial numbers.

The Lesson

The life of a pioneer has always been arduous. The story we have just reviewed illustrates this. Hopkins was a successful workman with clever and novel ideas. Fowle had been very successful in an entirely unrelated field. Wales had been very successful in importing and selling watches but the watch factory which he had owned in part had failed, the fault more probably that of the times than of the man. The various superintendents and foremen were first-class men with ample background in making conventional watches. At the time no one could have had experience in manufacturing exactly the grade and type of watch being attempted, for this was the pioneer effort.

The country was in the grip of a long, lingering depression following the Civil War. Money was tight. The Auburndale Rotary was conceived as a very low priced watch which would at the same time include the desirable and unusual feature of close timekeeping. Could these ideals have been adhered to, there is little reason to question that it would have found a market, even in hard times.

At this point the only hope for the factory seemed to be the manufacture of some other watch or similar small mechanism. The Auburndale timer, with the exception perhaps of the split-second model, was a triumph mechanically and it returned a profit, but not enough to meet the financial needs of its sponsors. Much the same may be said of all the later Auburndale products.

Surely they received a clear illustration of how dangerous it can be to engage in an enterprise without sufficient background or a long and careful study of design, manufacturing processes, costs, and market and sales analysis. For although numerous fortunes have been made in watch manufacturing, many more have been lost, and often those who put every effort at their command into such ventures came away with only sad experience as their reward. Thus ended the story of the Auburndale Watch Company.

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