A new historical work by Willard scholar Paul J. Foley!

Author of the comprehensive Willard’s Patent Time Pieces: A History of the Weight-Driven Banjo Clock, Mr. Foley has been researching the Willard clockmakers and allied craftsmen for over forty years. His latest contribution to Willard academia is this history of Boston ornamental and clock dial painter John Minott.

Minott was a pioneering painter of tall clock dials working primarily for the Roxbury/Boston, MA Willard clockmakers in the late 18th century. Dozens of his signed tall clock dials have been identified, documented, and are illustrated in this new work.

The author traces Minott’s relatively melancholy career that brought him great financial success followed by economic and personal failure at the time of the near collapse of the New England economy during the War of 1812. Minott signed many of his painted dials on the rear, enabling them to be identified today. Additionally, there are many unsigned dials that can be confidently attributed to him. Minott established Boston as the center of American painted tall clock dials.

Fully illustrated paperback with colored photographs, 8 ½ x 11, 48 pages