I don’t usually stop to check out the costume jewelry at auction, but I had some time to waste while the auctioneer was selling paintings, none of which had enticed me.
So I combed through the cardboard flats of costume jewelry on a table in another room. One flat held my interest. It was an amalgam of disparate pieces: Tootie Toy diecast cars, watches, gold-plated jewelry, a cap gun, a LeCoultre travel clock, a Cameo brooch, a beaded purse and what looked like a baby-powder shaker.
When the auctioneer finally got around to the jewelry, I stepped closer because I wanted to buy that box (at the right price) and delve a little deeper into it. My intended box was next up when the auctioneer got stuck on a box of bangles that no one wanted. So, he did what all auctioneers do, and added another box to it – mine.
Suddenly, several people wanted both boxes, and I had to fight to get it, spending more than I had intended. I’m glad I hung in there, though, because when I got the boxes home, I found other treasures.
One of the most interesting was a man’s wristwatch in very good condition, considering that it was not new. It had a large face with roman numerals, along with the inscription “Geo. W. Chatterton. Springfield, ILL.” At the bottom was a minute hand in a small clock-like circle.
On the side of the watch was a latch that reminded me of a pocket watch. Inside, the movement was partially exposed under metal and clear covers, with an inscription scribbled in tiny cursive lettering on the metal piece. On the other side, the inscription was printed in black capital letters:
APRIL 13 – 1861
FORT SUMPTER WAS
ATTACKED BY THE REBELS
ON THE ABOVE DATE.
THANK GOD WE HAVE
A GOVERNMENT.
JONTH DILLON
The watch was obviously a replica, but a replica of what? It seems that the incident that precipitated the inscription goes back to the Civil War, and the inscriber was referring to President Lincoln.
Johnth Dillon was actually Jonathan Dillon, an immigrant Irish watchmaker who had the task of repairing Lincoln’s pocket watch in a Washington, DC, shop in 1861. This was apparently the president’s first pocket watch, which he had gotten in the 1850s from jeweler George Chatterton Sr. while a young lawyer in Springfield, Ill. The gold watch – its case American-made and its movement from Liverpool, England – was an open display of his prestige and success as an attorney. Lincoln apparently frequented Chatterton often; he also bought his wife’s gold wedding band from the jeweler.
In a 1906 New York Times article, Dillon told of how the inscription came about:
“When the Civil War broke out, I was in the employ of M.W. Galt & Co. on Pennsylvania Avenue, near Seventh Street, in Washington. I was the only Union sympathizer working in the shop. I was working upstairs when Mr. Galt came up. He was very much excited and gasped: ‘Dillon, war has begun; the first shot has been fired.’
At that moment, I had in my hand Abraham Lincoln’s watch, which I had been repairing. It was a gold, hunting case, English lever watch. … I was in the act of screwing on the dial when Mr. Galt announced the news. I unscrewed the dial, and with a sharp instrument wrote on the metal beneath ‘The first gun is fired. Slavery is dead. Thank God we have a President who at least will try.’ Then I signed my name and the date. So far as I know, no one but myself ever saw the inscription.”
The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, SC. It would be two years before slavery was abolished through the Emancipation Proclamation, but the war was a precursor.
Dillon’s story was passed down through generations of his family, but no one ever tried to verify it until a great-great-grandson started investigating. That’s when he found the 1906 newspaper article.
The watch had been donated to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in 1958 by Lincoln’s great-grandson, but officials there knew nothing of such an inscription. Lincoln didn’t know about it either, according to the Smithsonian. Watchmakers in the 18th and 19th century routinely inscribed their work in the interior of watches and no one but other watchmakers would see it, the museum noted.
In 2009, the watch was opened, meticulously with tweezers and tiny pliers, by an expert watchmaker who had to exert a bit of energy to get inside it. There was an inscription, but the message was a little different from what Dillon, then 84, told the reporter in 1906:
Jonathan Dillon
April 13-1861
Fort Sumpter was attacked
by the rebels on the above
date J Dillon
April 13-1861
Washington
thank God
we have a
government
Jonth Dillon
The watch also held two other inscriptions, one perhaps the name of another engraver in 1864, and the words “Jeff Davis,” apparently in reference to the president of the failed Confederacy.
The replica at auction was not the only remake: A replica pocket watch was also manufactured with the name George Chatterton.
