I regret to inform the horological community that Mr. Dana J. Blackwell of Naugatuck CT passed away on Thursday, June 14, in his home. I learned of the event only today, 6-19, upon arriving home from a physics conference in Austria. The funeral is tomorrow, June 20, and the memorial service is at 11am at the Hillside Covenant Church, 100 Hillside Ave, Naugatuck. My apologies for the very short notice. Dana had been ill for some time, and his death was not unexpected.

Our hobby has lost a fine, soft-spoken gentleman and scholar. Dana has greatly assisted my own research on Howard pocket watches, which were one of Dana's many horological and non-horological interests. As many know, Dana worked for the E. Howard Clock Company for a number of years in the capacity of "Chief Engineer." One of his duties in that post was answering the inquiries for historical information from Howard pocket watch owners. (The firm had of course ceased to manufacture watches before Dana's time, in 1903.) Dana took this responsibility so seriously that the company's management decided it was costing too much money and decided to dispose of the records, at which point Dana was given permission to take possession of them. The first and third record books have not survived (or have disappeared) but the set is otherwise pretty complete. (See my book for a discussion and highlights, or the on-line compressed version of the records for data on specific S#'s.) The records were given to the Smithsonian in or about 2001. By combining this source of information with the Townsend database and my image database, the value of each individual information source was greatly multiplied. I sent Dana a draft of my book on Howard watches prior to the 2002 seminar. Dana then invited me to visit, and mutual respect blossomed into friendship.

Dana was also a schoolmaster and served on the staff of the American Clock and Watch Museum in Bristol, at various other times of his career. His other horological interests included English pocket chronometers, especially those of Chas. Frodsham. He possessed much insight and had numerous interesting stories and perspectives to share.

I am deeply saddened by this news. Dana Blackwell was a giant in Horology and Howard watches in particular. I met him on two occations and enjoyed every minute I spent with him. Condolences to his family. He will be missed.
Sincerely,
Joel Sarich

Aw shoot, I'd always wanted to get to know him in person. We talked on the phone and corresponded a few times about 15 years ago.

I'm someone who tends to spend two or three minutes on the phone. My first call with Dana went about an hour which is likely my personal record. Ten minutes of that was spent discussing the Naugatuck button industry?!

Dana was there when they plowed the old Howard factory into a hole and paved it over. We laughed about getting a National Geographic expedition organized to mount a recovery operation. The neighborhood was pretty rough back then so we joked that the NGS would provide a proper entourage.

I would be curious to know where his papers end up because he had a photo I would really like to see again. I didn't want to bother him for it these last years. Gosh, he was pretty old by now!

A wonderful man, not soon forgot!
-Cort

Dana was very helpful and accomodating to me and my co-authors in our research on the Waltham-Howard story that I am writing. I feel honored to have recently been able to acquire Dana's own example of one of these fine and interesting watches. This one, sold through Benedict Brothers (New York) in 1904, has a 21-jewel bridge-model movement and was first delivered to E.Howard & Co. (from Waltham) in July 1903.

... and the movement.

A great watch with a great provenance, Jerry. Congratulations. I am pleased to see it remain in the research community.