Today, I look around and many people no longer wear wrist watches. Most use their Android or iPhones to check the time. There are variations on the previous versions of the wrist watch which we now refer to as wrist monitors which will keep track of how many steps we’ve walked, our blood pressure, and so on.

How about we drift back about 150 years and look at what our ancestors used?
I have in my possession, two sentimental keepsakes, which from time to time, I remove from their safe storage to admire, wind up, and think back of all the memories they hold in their tiny hands. Tiny hands which went round and round, ticking off the minutes of each and every day, pointing to the present hour whenever viewed, and never turning back, only moving ever forward.
The Elgin National Watch Company was founded on August 27th, 1864, as the National Watch Company, changing the name to the Elgin National Watch Company in 1874. The founding officers were Philo Carpenter, Howard Z. Culver, Benjamin W. Raymond, George M. Wheeler, Thomas S. Dickerson, Edward H. Williams, and W. Robbins.

The Elgin watch became one of the go to time pieces of its day. A standard. They were dependable and held up under all conditions. How well do you ask? Well, here’s my Great Grandfather’s, Sands Crawford (b. 10-15-1855, d. 07-14-1917), pocket watch, along with the key to wind it and the string he used to keep it tethered. It still works!

This model is from about 1892. There are other examples of this model still around if you look. Sands passed away from a stroke on a Saturday morning on our farm and probably still had this watch in his pocket when he left us behind. He most likely had it with him when his children and grandchildren were born, his wife passed away, and as other major life events unfolded. Now, I sometimes wind it up and hold it, hoping to bridge the gap of time, and drift back there.

The other Elgin watch, which has been passed down to me, is my Grandfather’s, William Theodore Crawford (b.01-21-1887, d. 02-01-1938). This one is much more elegant than his father’s, Sands Crawford. You can see how things had changed from generation to generation. More emphasis on detail while maintaining complete functionality. Nevertheless, both these time pieces served their owners well.

I have my Grandfather’s watch fob, too! I can see him all dressed up, sporting this gold watch in his vest pocket, at a local church social, a sparkling dandy before the ladies. And, if you look closely at his photo, he’s wearing a tie tack with his monogram engraved. I still have this tie tack to treasure, and even sometimes wear if for special events. The fashions of today pale in comparison to previous eras.

As we all know, things move on, like those tiny hands going around and around, and so did the Elgin National Watch Company. By the 1960’s, new innovations like self-winding watches were being introduced, for one. In the next few decades, we saw the introduction of the digital watch, which was the death knell for the older mechanisms. Batteries replaced the main spring. In 1968, the company shutdown operations. The following year, in 1969, they dissolved the firm.

For those of the younger persuasion who may be reading this, do you now know what the small pocket on the right side of your jeans is for? 150 years ago, wrist models had yet to be invented. Everyone needed a place to carry their time piece so the jean manufacturers filled the need with this additional pocket.