Benjamin Willard of Grafton, Lexington, and Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Benjamin Willard is the oldest of four Willard clockmaking brothers. His younger brother Simon is considered by many to be America’s most famous Clockmaker. The two other younger brothers that also made clocks include Ephraim and Aaron. Benjamin was born on March 19, 1743. As a New England Clockmaker, he never stayed in one location for an extended period of time. In December 1764, Benjamin advertised himself as a maker of shoe lasts and was working in East Hartford, Connecticut, at the home of Benjamin Cheney. Because Cheney was an established Clockmaker, it is logical to assume that he received some wooden geared clock training from him. Two signed Benjamin wooden geared clocks are known, and both feature the Cheney construction form. He is also recorded as buying land from his Father in Grafton on May 18, 1864, and then a second lot on August 20, 1766. Returning from Hartford to Grafton sometime in 1766, and by early 1767, Benjamin relocated to Lexington, Massachusetts. Here it is recorded that he worked with and then succeeded the brass clockmaker Nathaniel Mulliken Sr (1722-1776). It is thought that Benjamin received some level of brass construction clockmaking training from Mulliken before he passed in late 1767. Shortly after that, he hired John Morris to teach himself and his brothers Simon and Aaron, brass clockmaking. During this period, he advertised that he maintained separate shops in both towns until 1771 when it appears he moved the Lexington shop to Roxbury. The location of this shop is not currently known. It is thought to have been on Roxbury Street. The Roxbury shop then moved to Brookline in 1775. This is an important date because it represents the changeover from Roxbury Signed clocks to the Grafton examples. During the period 1777-78, he advertised being located in Medford. Benjamin moved back to Grafton and Worcester and then to Baltimore, Maryland, where he died in September of 1803.

Benjamin Willard numbered many of his clocks. The highest number recorded to date is No. 699. Robert Cheney reports to have seen No. 16 and has stated that this clock is dated 1768 and is signed Grafton. The Willard Museum owns No. 18. It is also dated 1768, but this clock is signed Lexington. No. 80 is also signed Lexington (Masonic Museum). The next few clocks recorded are No. 104,105, 114, and 115. These clocks are signed Grafton. No 131 is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is signed Roxbury and dated 1772. This starts a long stretch of clocks, including 132, 135, 138, 142, 146, 153, 154, 155, 157, 163, 175, 181, 191, 198, 202, 207, 209, 213, 219, 221, 232, 239 that are all signed Roxbury. Very few of the clocks in this sequence of Roxbury place locations are signed Grafton. These numbers currently include 146 and 228. By number 269, the changeover from Roxbury to Grafton occurs. All clocks know after 269 are signed Grafton if they have a place location listed.

On September 3, 1789, Benjamin advertised in the Herald and Worcester Recorder that he had moved from Grafton to Worcester and that he had manufactured 359 clocks in the past 23 years. That works out to approximately 15 or 16 clocks per year during that period. He also states that he had left Roxbury in 1775. Current research suggests that somewhere shortly after clock number 239, he moved from Roxbury, and these are perhaps pre-revolutionary.