KINGFIELD — The Kingfield Historical Society will showcase one of its new treasures during this weekend’s Kingfield Days festivities.

Last year, George Stanley, a descendant of the well-known Stanley brothers who invented the Stanley Steamer, asked Society president David Holmes, if he’d like the museum to house a clock. It turned out to be one made entirely of wood, built by Silas Hoadley, a clockmaker from Plymouth, Conn., who helped revolutionize the clock industry in the United States.

“No one had clocks before the early 1800s but the wealthy people who could afford to have them made,” Holmes said. “Hoadley made clocks that had wooden gears that could be easily made for a low cost, which meant the average working person could buy a clock,” he said.

The grandfather clock in the Historical Society’s house on High Street has a simple pine cabinet and very little decoration, but the impact of this early 19th century innovation in manufacturing of clocks changed American lives.

Wooden gear clocks owner (www.wooden-gear-clocks.com) Jeff Schierenbeck has been selling clocks, clock kits and clock plans since 2003, in Altoona, Wisc.

He still marvels at the ingenuity of clock makers during Hoadley’s time, because craftsmen didn’t have electricity, computers or today’s sophisticated machinery. When the sun was directly overhead, a farmer knew what time it was. When the world became more industrialized, the clock industry changed to build clocks that told workers when to go to and from work, church or home.

“I have enormous admiration for those who created clockworks without prior research available, computers or even a simple way to check the time,” he said.

Silas Hoadley’s clocks would typically have a run time of 30 hours up to as much as eight days, Schierenbeck said, and were wound by pulling down on a cord to hoist a weight. Wood had its benefits and limitations.

“Humidity was an issue, especially before there was plywood,” he said.

“Great care was taken in the selection of woods and in piecing together sections to create a stable blank for a gear.”

Since materials expand and contract with changes in temperature, the pendulum is sensitive to temperature. Other factors influence a clock pendulum’s period. Wind drafts, barometric pressure, the driving weight and shaft stiffness all have an influence on the pendulum’s period, he explained.

Donald Muller, executive director of the American Clock and Watch Museum in Bristol, Conn., who wrote “Everyman’s Time: The Rise and Fall of Connecticut Clockmaking,” explained that a partnership brought marketing, mechanical and woodworking skills together to make the magic happen. Eli Terry, Silas Hoadley and Seth Thomas developed a system that used water power to run saws and lathes, and jigs to make parts that could fit into more than one clock. In 1806, Eli Terry signed a contract to produce 4,000 wooden clock movements and spent two years perfecting his methods. The partners produced 3,000 wooden clocks in the third year. Before this, clock makers could produce a half dozen by hand in the same time period.

Business boomed, and thousands of Connecticut workers were employed making clocks. Eli Terry began another enterprise. Seth Thomas began his own company in 1814, and Hoadley remained the sole owner, making clocks until 1849. He was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly several times, and in 1844, to the Connecticut State Senate.

For more information about clocks and watches and their history, Muller said the American Clock & Watch Museum (clockandwatchmuseum.org) provides a broad base of knowledge.

“A good book to read would be ‘Two Hundred Years of American Clocks and Watches’ by Chris Bailey,” he said. “The process of using interchangeable parts was what made that quantum leap forward. It got them over the hill and started them down the other side of mass production, and Hoadley was an important part of that change.”