John Pond. Clockmaker, Watchmaker, and Jeweler, working in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Roxbury, Massachusetts.

John Pond was born in 1787. As a young man, he worked as a clock peddler and met Simon Willard in about 1805. Pond apprenticed in Roxbury as a clockmaker in 1805-1808. It is currently thought that he learned the art of clockmaking under Simon Willard. He returned to Portsmouth, NH, by July of 1809 and set up shop there. Ads recorded in The Portsmouth papers stated that he continued watchmaking and clockmaking at this shop. This statement is interesting because it suggests he had trained as a watchmaker before 1805. His ads in Portsmouth also offered for sale Willard clocks made in their manufactory. Later he stated that a shipment of Willard's timepieces and regulators had just arrived and were available for purchase. On December 31, 1809, John Pond married Simon Willard's daughter Hannah Willard. In 1810, he took on his brother-in-law Simon Willard Jr as an apprentice. Pond's business failed during the War of 1812. In 1813, he was back in Roxbury working as a journeyman clockmaker for Simon Willard Sr.