The Dueber Watch Company

Hook - In the year 1888 Canton only had a population of 13,000 but less than 4 years later, Canton’s population had grown to over double that, thanks to John Charles Dueber and the Dueber-Hampden Watch Company.

John C. Dueber It all started in 1849 when a nine-year old boy by the name of John Charles Dueber, came to the new land of America with his mother father, and little sister, ready for a new life away from his small home village of Netphen, Germany. When Dueber was in his teens he took up an apprenticeship to a watch case engraver in Cincinnati, Ohio. He worked at this for 5 years until he eventually decided to split from his teacher and begin working on his own. He worked day ad night, engraving watch cases during the day and creating

However during these years as his company grew bigger, the large watch companies such as Hamilton and Elgin realized his success and proceeded to boycott him, saying that he was only making the situation of the underproduction of watch movements worse and because of this the city of Newport imposed extra taxes on John Dueber, however he refused to pay them leaving the city of Newport with only one more choice. He either had to pay the extra taxes in Newport, allowing him to stay or he had to leave Newport a find a new city to grow his company.

Hampden Watch Company The Hampden Watch Company was created in 1877 with funds from Donald J. Mozart and multiple other investors. After the company was founded it, unlike the other companies created or funded by Donald Mozart, flourished. In 1885 or 1886 John Dueber came to SpringField, Massachusetts to sort out an issue involving his company’s current state and location. At this meeting John Dueber made the decision of purchasing the Hampden Watch Company for $150,000 a modern day $3,750,000.

The Dueber Hampden Watch

However, there was no room in Springfield to expand the factory and as a result of this, John Dueber began the long search for a new city to begin create. Stating that if a city wanted the newly combined Dueber-Hampden Watch Company then they would have to gift John Dueber $100,000 to help build the factories and in return the city would receive a population boost of around 10,000 people, the employees and their family. After Dueber released this statement he visited hundreds of cities, most of which could not pay the funds he was asking for. While Dueber was visiting other cities, Charles A. Dougherty, a retired Canton banker was gathering 20 prominent figures in Canton, asking them each for $5,000 to help pay the fund for the new companies. And in less then 3 months he had the money raised and a meeting with John Dueber was arranged. At the meeting John Dueber was told about Canton and was gifted the $100,000. Along with this gift came 25 acres of land gifted from the Meyers and he was given special land benefits and John Dueber accepted the offer and later received a congratulatory letter from William Mckinley. Soon after this the construction for the new factories began on October 14, 1886. Designed by Peoples, the new factory would actually be split into two