'The subscriber respectfully informs his firends and the public, that the President of the United States has granted him a PATENT RIGHT for his newly invented ALARUM TIMEPIECE.' Patented in 1819, Simon Willard's alarm clock provided customers with a portable yet extravagant timepiece that for only the first few years were actually installed with working alarms. Referred to as Eddystone lighthouse clocks because of their resemblance to the Eddyston light in the English Channel, a small number of these clocks were made with many variations in their form and proportions.

Eager to compete with the fashionable foreign markets, Willard designed his alarm clock after imported French mantle clocks with a glass dome, porcelain dial, exposed works and ormolu bezel and feet. Made by Willard from 1819 into the 1830s and possibly later, Willard's earlier examples, such as this timepiece, are more slender and classical in form (Zea and Cheney, Clockmaking in New England (Sturbridge, 1992), pp. 51-52).

For a discussion of Simon Willard's lighthouse clocks see Richard W. Husher and Walter W. Welche, A Study of Simon Willard's Clocks (Boston, 1980), pp. 171-205. Related lighthouse clocls in museum collections are illustrated in Conger and Rollins, Treasures of State (New York, 1991), no. 153; White House (Cooper, In Praise of America ( ), fig. 136; Metropolitan Museum of Art (Palmer, Treasure of American Clocks (New York, 1967), nos. 89, 91; Old Sturbridge Village (Clockmaking in New England (Sturbridge, 1992), fig. 2.57; Diston & Bishop, The American Clock (New York, 1986), fig. 210; Winterthur Museum (Montgomery, American Furniture (New York, 1966), no. 175.