The Charles Jacques saga is a complex tale that was the subject of an article in the NAWCC Bulletin in April, 1996. If you're not an NAWCC member, click here.
Basically, Jacques was in and out of numerous companies after the Charles Jacques Clock Co was purchased by Harris and Harrington (the US distributor for J.J.Elliott and Harington Chimes) in 1894. By 1897, H&H had poor old Charles thrown in jail for reasons related to a personal note Jacques owed, and his chatel mortgage of the firm to cover that note, at a time when he was being ousted as president; he was held for $3,000 bail. The grand jury dismissed the complaint a week later. The plot continues...
Like many creative, invention-driven entrepreneurs, Jacques made it through the tough times and bounced back, his next appearance being with Bawo and Dotter, a major New York importer located at 30 Barclay Sreet, NYC. Francis Bawo and his two partners hired Jacques in 1895 to run their new clock department because he had experience importing hall clocks from England. Charles T. Dotter was deceased by this time and had previously terminated his partnership with Bawo on January 1, 1891.
They apparently turned over the entire second floor of their retail store at 26 Barclay Street to Jacques, who advertised his new hall clocks: "The movements are principally of Elliott's make, striking Westminster and Wittington chimes on 8 bells or gongs." These ads continued to show Elliott movements through 1898, the year Bawo and Dotter announced they "...now control Junghans", the larger German clockmaking firm that had previously acquired Gustav Becker and Lenzkirch, along with a myriad of other Black Forest clockmaking firms... and that's a whole other story itself.
Charles Jacques held Patent #685,045 for creating variations of a hammer mechanism for striking tubular bells. Patent #686,301 included a solid cap closing the top of the tube, a transverse tube enclosing the supporting cable, and tuning by means of cutting away part of the tube or perforating or notching it. Jacques' patent was assigned to Bawo & Dotter, a corporation of New Jersey.
Meanwhile, back at the firm, Jacques continued to receive clock-related patents, including a 13-bell chime clock. 1n 1901 he obtained an American patent for a clock-chime, and another for a tubular bell of different shape than those made by Walter H. Durfee of Rhode Island. All three of these patents were assigned to Bawo & Dotter in New York City, but who were also described as "a corporation of New Jersey." Any or all of these patents may have formed part of the basis of a lawsuit by Durfee against Bawo in 1902, on the grounds of patent infringement. Durfee lost the lawsuit, and with it his American monopoly on tubular clock chimes.
In 1915 Charles Jacques registered a trademark for his own new firm simply calling it "Jacques", and applied for another patent on a clock case which he assigned to George Borgfeldt & Co. another major NYC importer with whom he was strategically aligned.
Charles Jacques, perhaps the most innovative of his peers, died on February 4, 1920. Here is his obituary.
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