1801-1805

Tall Case Clock

American, active c. 1820 - 1830

African American craftsman Peter Hill was still enslaved when he served as an apprentice to clockmaker Joseph Hollingshead, Jr., in Burlington, New Jersey. Hill lived in the predominantly Quaker community of Burlington Township, where slaveholding was frowned upon, and he acquired his freedom in 1795. This painted dial by Hill (marked 101, indicating that he made at least that many) is as stylish as any produced in the larger urban centers along the eastern seaboard, while the case belies the clock's more rural manufacture.