TERRY, Eli, clock-maker, born in East Windsor, Connecticut, 13 April, 1772; died in Terryville, Connecticut, 24 February, 1852. He was apprenticed to Thomas Harland, a maker of brass clocks in Norwich, Connecticut, and there acquired the rudiments of his trade. In 1792 he made his first wooden clock, which is still preserved in the family, and is one of the first that was made in this country. A year later he settled in Plymouth, Connecticut, and there began the manufacture of wooden and brass clocks, but soon ceased to make the latter, as the former, being much cheaper than the metal ones and quite as good time-keepers, proved far more salable. About 1797 Mr. Terry invented a clock that registered the difference between mean and apparent time, but its cost prevented it from becoming popular. Mr. Terry worked alone until 1800, when he hired two men to assist him, and then for several years frequently travelled on horseback through the country selling his clocks. The business increased, and in 1807 he contracted to deliver 4,000 movements to a Waterbury firm, which order took him three years to complete. The success of this undertaking marks the beginning of the making of wooden clocks as an industry. Mr. Terry had in his employ at this time Silas Hoadley and Seth Thomas, who in 1810 purchased his business, then the largest of its kind in the United States. In 1814 he produced the Terry shelf-clock, also of wood, features of which are retained in clocks that are now made, and in 1816 he began the manufacture of this clock, in which he was successful. He continued active as an inventor, and made many new designs, including a peculiar form of gravity-escapement (1830).