Timekeeping in Maryland.

One of this country's most elegant Federal houses is Homewood, built in Baltimore by Charles Carroll of Carrollton for his dissolute son Charles Carroll Jr. in the early years of the nineteenth century. George Washington called the elder Carroll "the most monied man" in America, and Homewood was expensive to build in its own day. Unfortunately, very few of the original furnishings survive.

Recently Catherine Rogers Arthur, the curator of Homewood, became intrigued by frustratingly sketchy references to a watch and a clock appraised at ten and twenty dollars respectively in the younger Carroll's probate inventory, and she began to research what sort of timekeeping devices might have been at Homewood at the time. The results of her findings have formed the basis for a small exhibition and accompanying catalogue entitled Clock and Watchmaking in Early Maryland, of which she is the curator. The show includes more than twenty tall-case clocks, pocket watches, and mantel clocks, and is on view from September 10 through November 28 at Homewood. The timepieces were made or owned in Baltimore, on the Eastern Shore, in Annapolis, and in the western part of the state, and illustrate the range available to consumers in Maryland.

Arthur looked into the inventories of other affluent citizens in the region ...