LOCATION:
We are located on the north end of Cheshire Bridge Road,
one block south of the I-85 overpass, between the
cross streets of Sheridan Road and
Chantilly Road.
Circumstances
do the planning for us all, no doubt, by help of our temperaments.
I see no great difference between a man and a watch, except that
the man is conscious and the watch isn’t, and the man tries to
plan things and the watch doesn’t. The watch doesn’t wind
itself and doesn’t regulate itself—these things are done
exteriorly. Outside influences, outside circumstances, wind the
man and regulate him. Left to himself, he wouldn’t get regulated
at all, and the sort of time he would keep would not be valuable.
Some rare men are wonderful watches, with gold case, compensation
balance, and all those things, and some men are only simple sweet
and humble Waterburys. I am a Waterbury. A Waterbury of that kind,
some say.
–Mark Twain, from The
Turning Point of My Life
The Waterbury Watch
Company of Waterbury, Connecticut was established in 1880 to
produce a cheap pocket watch which
originally sold for $3.50. The watch the company designed was
the simplest of watches, one of which contained only 58 parts.
It had a nickel-plated case with no cover and only an hour hand.
Because the watches were so inexpensive, clothing manufacturers
and other entrepreneurs gave them away as premiums with their
often inferior products, so the public came to associate the
watch with shoddy workmanship.
A
good many boys make fun of the WATERBURY because it takes so long
to wind. Pshaw! How many times a day do you wind your top? How
long does it take you to haul in your kite and wind up the string?
How much trouble do you take polishing up your bicycle, or putting
on your skates? If you devoted a tenth of the time and energy to
winding your watch that you do to pulling the cat’s tail or
teasing the dog, it would always be wound. But now, really, boys
you can’t expect to get the whole world for three dollars and a
half. Let us whisper a little advice. Form the habit of giving the
stem of your WATERBURY a few turns every time you take it out to
look at the time, and your watch will always be wound without your
realizing it. –The
Waterbury Gazetteer
The Waterbury Watch Company of
Waterbury, Connecticut