Benjamin Franklin Willard
1803 - 1847
Benjamin Franklin Willard was the fifth son of Simon Willard (1753 - 1848) and Simon's second wife, Mary Bird Willard. He was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on 2 November 1803. He was a talented mechanic, clockmaker, inventor, and artist.
Like his brother, Simon Willard Jr. (1795 - 1874), Benjamin Franklin Willard received limited schooling and went to work in his father's clockmaking shop at a young age. Although he learned the clockmaking trade, he did not go into the clockmaking business for himself. At times he worked for his father and other parties. For instance, in 1840, Willard installed a tower clock in the First Congregational Church of Falmouth, Massachusetts. It is not known whether this clock survives.
The only clock known to survive is the unique and remarkable astronomical regulator he designed and built in 1844 in his brother's Boston clock shop at No. 9 Congress Street, Boston. This clock won a Gold Medal from the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association. It is now in the Harvard Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments.
Willard's scientific and technical interests outside of clockmaking included an invention of a revolving signal light for lighthouses. In 1928, the United States government contracted with Willard to supply the Light-House Service with his new form of signal light for the lighthouse at the entrance of Boston harbor. Willard built and tested the clock-driven light at his brother's shop on Congress Street. The signal light was installed in the Boston Light sometime around 1830 or 1834, and Willard was compensated $230 for the new equipment and repair of the older machinery. In 1839, Willard thought it best to patent his invention. A copy of the patent is reproduced in Simon Willard and His Clocks by John Ware Willard.
Willard was also talented artist and caligrapher.
Willard worked as secretary of the Boylston Insurance Company and the India Insurance Company between 1834 and 1838. In 1846-1847, he ran a jewelry and silversmith business in Boston under the name of Rich & Willard.
Willard died on 11 March 1847 at the age of 43.
John Ware Willard, <i>Simon Willard and His Clocks</i> (New York: Dover, 1968), 74-78, plates 25, 27.