Historic Movement Clock Dates Back To The 1800s

The ongoing public display of old clocks in the William King Museum in Abingdon, Va., has rekindled in me a long-held keen interest in this category of antiques.
One thing of which I have been long aware is that usually so little is known of the past of these clocks. Not often is the name and location of past owners known. To have pictures of the original owners is rare, and to have a picture of the house in which the clock was first kept is even more rare.
I know of one collector who has owned 348 clocks. Of that number, he has only known the past of about 10 of them. Most of them were bought in antique shops or from traders who knew nothing concerning whence they came from or who had originally owned them. Usually, the value is increased if such is known. Sometimes, it will double once the past has been established.
The antique clock that is pictured with this article has a very well known past. For around 170 years, it was in the family of David Orestus King, long a prominent citizen of the Holston Valley section of Sullivan County, Tenn.
Mr. King was born Jan. 12, 1804 on the Cedar Hill Plantation that is divided by the Tennessee/Virginia state line (it is now known as Painter Place). He was a son of David and Elizabeth Sharp King, who established Cedar Hill in 1791, when the land was partially in Sullivan County, N.C., (somewhere here at old Pleasant Hill, I have a deed dated 1782 from Sullivan County, N.C.).
On Oct. 5, 1826, David O. King married his childhood playmate and first cousin Mariamna McChesney King. Before this marriage, he had built a two-story hewn log house near his father’s home. He and his bride moved into this house on the day of their marriage.
At that time, there were only openings where the doors would soon be hung. They hung quilts over those openings as temporary shutters. Far into that first night, the family dog, loudly barking, chased a fox into the room and under their bed where a violent fight ensued.
Then, as the fox broke loose and raced back out the door with the dog in hot pursuit, the quilt was jerked down and dragged all the way into Painter Creek. Doors were hung the next day.
The clock of which I write was brought into this log house before 1836. This wooden movement clock was made by Seth Thomas of Plymouth, Conn. It was likely sold to the Kings by a peddler.
I have been told that an Abingdon merchant stocked many of them and then sent out peddlers to sell them in the surrounding territory. These peddlers sought out persons who they thought could afford one. Even though they sold for less than $10, only a few people could buy them. Thus, they became somewhat of a status symbol.
I know of two other identical clocks that are yet in Holston Valley homes that were bought about the same time.
A common practice of peddlers was to leave a clock in a home and then travel on for several miles and return within a few days to see if the person with whom he had left it wanted to buy. Usually, they did.
Around 1847, David O. King built a brick house near the state line. This clock was moved there and for many years was kept on the parlor mantel.
Mrs. King died on May 8, 1880. David O. King died a little over a year later on May 21, 1881. They rest in the nearby Cold Springs Cemetery.
After their deaths, the old clock passed to their daughter, Caroline Elizabeth King (1835-1915), wife of John F. Painter who lived in the King home. Later, when this couple bought a calendar clock, this old one was put on the mantel in the west, upstairs bedroom and there it remained many more years.
All together, this old clock remained in the yet standing brick and log home for about 93 years. It still remained with the Painter heirs until 2005.
It is now in the old and charming home of Bob and Michelle White of Bristol, Tenn. They have heirs, and it is expected that it will be preserved for many years yet to come.

BUD PHILLIPS is a local historian and author. He can be reached at (276) 466-6435.