Lebbeus Bailey
{{Infobox person
| name = Lebbeus Bailey
| image =
| image_size =
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth date|1763|5|12}}
| birth_place = Hanover, Province of Massachusetts Bay
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1827|12|6|1763|5|12}}
| death_place = Barnstable County, Massachusetts, U.S.
| resting_place = Ledge Cemetery, Yarmouth, Maine, U.S.
| citizenship = United States
| occupation = Clockmaker
}}
Lebbeus Bailey (May 12, 1763 – December 6, 1827) was an American clockmaker, prominent in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. After setting up his first business in Massachusetts, he came to prominence after moving to North Yarmouth in today's Maine, where he made clocks, sleigh bells and jewelry.{{Cite web |title=Clockmakers of Maine - 1700 to 1925 |url=http://www.tscchapter134.org/DHL/Clockwork_files/mainemakers.html |access-date=2022-07-16 |website=www.tscchapter134.org}}
Life and career
File:56 East Main Street 2024.jpg
Bailey was born in 1763 in Hanover, Province of Massachusetts Bay, to Colonel John Bailey and Ruth Randall, the sixth of their nine children and one of their four sons.{{Cite book |last=Dwelley |first=Jedediah |title=History of the Town of Hanover, Massachusetts, with Family Genealogies |publisher=Town of Hanover |year=1911 |pages=213}} His sister, Ruth, married William Stockbridge, father of merchant William Reed Stockbridge.{{Cite book |last=Corliss |first=Augustus W. |title=Old Times in North Yarmouth, Maine, Volumes 5-8 |year=1881 |pages=806}}
After serving an apprenticeship with his older brothers Calvin and John II,{{Cite web |title=Antique John Bailey II Clocks |url=https://www.garysullivanantiques.com/Research/Early-American-Clockmakers/John-Bailey-II |access-date=2022-07-16 |website=www.garysullivanantiques.com}}{{Cite book |title=Early American Scientific Instruments and Their Makers |publisher=United States National Museum |year=1964 |pages=39}} Bailey was listed as a clockmaker in his own right in Hanover between 1784 and 1791.
He married Sarah Silvester Myrick on August 22, 1790,{{Cite book |last=Jobe |first=Brock |title=Harbor & Home: Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710-1850 |publisher=University Press of New England |year=2009 |isbn=9780912724683 |pages=337}} in Scituate, Massachusetts. They had eight children: Lebbeus Jr. (born 1791), Rufus William (1793), Mary Myrick (1795), Elizabeth Dawes (1797), Henry (1800), Timothy Myrick (1802), Joseph Stockbridge (1804) and Edward (1807). Rufus became a noted scholar, and founded the Augusta Female Seminary in Staunton, Virginia.
The year following his marriage,{{Cite book |last=Bailey |first=Chris H. |title=Two Hundred Years of American Clocks & Watches |publisher=Prentice-Hall |year=1975 |isbn=9780139351303 |pages=96}} he moved north to North Yarmouth, Province of Massachusetts Bay (now Maine).{{Cite book |title=Bulletin of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Volume 26, Pages 129-784 |publisher=Publications Committee |year=1984 |pages=469}} He set up a foundry beside Yarmouth's harbor, in the town's Lower Falls area,{{Cite book |last=Corliss |first=Augustus W. |title=Old Times in North Yarmouth, Maine, vol. 5, no. 1 |publisher=Augustus W. Corliss |date=January 1, 1881 |pages=609}} in which he produced tall clocks, shelf clocks, "sleigh bells, and in fact every kind of metal work of which his customers had need", noted Yarmouth's town historian William Hutchinson Rowe. He was also a jeweler, and made the medals and jewels that were worn by the local Masons of Casco Bay Lodge.{{Cite web |title=Lebbeus Bailey of Hanover, Massachusetts and North Yarmouth, Maine @ Delaney Antique Clocks |url=https://delaneyantiqueclocks.com/products/maker/252/ |access-date=2022-07-16 |website=delaneyantiqueclocks.com}} Bailey and his family lived nearby, at today's 56 East Main Street.{{Cite web |title=Harbor History Tour |url=https://www.yarmouthmehistory.org/tour2/ |access-date=2022-07-16 |website=www.yarmouthmehistory.org}} There, he "always had the best garden in the neighborhood, and the best fruit," noted Revd. Joseph Stockbridge.
Bailey went into business with his son, Lebbeus Jr.,[https://mainestatemuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Maine-Silver-Watches-and-Jewelry.pdf Maine Silver, Watches, and Jewelry: Makers and Dealers, 1760 to the Early 1900s] - Maine State Museum, Augusta, Maine (2014), p. 10{{Cite web |last=Bailey |first=Lebbeus |date=1850s |title=Lebbeus Bailey Jr. keeps constantly on hand a general assortment of jewelry, gold & silver watches, silver plated & Britania ware. Eastport. |url=https://americanantiquarian.org/watchpaperscollection/items/show/2471 |access-date=2022-07-16 |website=americanantiquarian.org}} in 1816, the company being known as Lebbeus Bailey & Son.{{Cite web |title=Lebbeus Bailey |url=https://www.americansilversmiths.org/makers/silversmiths/76795.htm |access-date=2022-07-16 |website=www.americansilversmiths.org}}
Death
Bailey died in Barnstable, Massachusetts, in 1827, aged 64.Obituary, Portland Gazette, December 7, 1827 His wife survived him by 28 years, and was interred beside him in Yarmouth's Ledge Cemetery.
References
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