Levi Hutchins

Levi Hutchins (born August 17, 1761 in Concord , New Hampshire Colony , † June 13, 1855 there ) was an American watchmaker .

Hutchins was the son of Gordon Hutchins and his wife Dorothy Stone. Together with his younger brother Abel, he was an apprentice to Simon Willard in Roxbury , Massachusetts , a well-known watchmaker and inventor. Hutchins is considered to be the inventor of the first alarm clock , even if there were earlier examples in Germany and England. In the 18th century, the sun woke you up in the morning, but Hutchins had to get up at 4 a.m. to get to work when it was still dark. In 1787 he constructed a pinewood case into which he installed one of his existing brass clocks. With the help of a gear, the clock sounded a bell at four in the morning. The noise was loud enough to wake Hutchins. The alarm clock did not yet have the option to set a different alarm time.

Hutchins never showed any interest in patenting his invention. He wrote an autobiography that was published ten years after his death with a foreword by his youngest son.

Works

• The Autobiography of Levi Hutchins: With a preface, notes, and addenda . Riverside Press, 1865.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ clockhistory.com History of the Alarm Clock