The Waltham Model 1857 is a watch made by the American Watch Company, later called the Waltham Watch Companyin the City of Waltham, Massachusetts in the United States of America. The Waltham Model 1857 was the first made in the year 1857 and in years prior to that year, pocket watches were not made of standard parts and there was a difficulty in repairing and making the watches on a cost effective basis. All of this work in design and development led the American Watch Company to create and market the First Successful Industrialized Watch
Before 1857, The Boston Watch Company made and sold approximately 5,000 movements and 4,000 cases before it failed financially, an in the factory at the time there was an estimated 1,300 watches in various stages of production that had yet to be finished into complete watches. In the spring of 1857, the Boston Watch Company just did not have enough money to stay running and was forced into insolvency.[1]
Most pocket watches made in the world were in England or France, and this was also a test for early American manufacturing to take and produce items better than the countries in Europe, where at the time was in the middle of the industrial revolution. Most of the Model 57 pocket watches were in a coin silver, a bit different than sterling silver, that coin silver is only 80 pure. American system of watch manufacturing in wikipedia is a great side reference on the Waltham Model 57 Pocket Watch
In tribute, upon the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln was presented with a William Ellery, key wind watch Waltham Model 1857, serial number 67613. This watch is now in the collection of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.[2]
A message, said to be left by a watchmaker that happened to be fixing the pocket watch in 1861 just as getting the news on the historic Fort Sumter attack had reached Washington, D.C. was etched onto the mechanical movement by the watchmaker in 1861 was not discovered until that was not discovered until in March 2009.[3] The message reads, “The first gun is fired. Slavery is dead. Thank God we have a President who at least will try.”[4]
The internal mechanical movement was key wind, and to set the watch you used the same key. Some of the Model 57 Watches were fitted in Gold watch cases, but the majority were silver.
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