The Dickory, Dickory, Dock Clock
The Dickory, Dickory Doc Clock was designed by Elmer Ellsworth Dungan in a partnership with Charles M. Klump. The company Dungan & Klump marketed the clocks. Dungan initially designed the “mouse clock” for his daughter Emily.
From Charles Terwilliger’s History we learn:
In children’s books, “Dickory, Dickory, Dock,” is sometimes “Hickory, Dickory, Dock,” or “Ziccoty Dickety, Dock,” or “Zickety, Dickety, Dock.” Although the derivation of these seemingly meaningless words is not clear, most experts think that they have come down through the centuries, corrupted by constant repition in children’s counting-out and nonsense rhymes, from nunerals used by the prehistoric Celts. The version Emily Dungan learned was “Dickory, Dickory, Dock,” and thus the clock bears that name.1
Five different models of the clock exist. Early Dickory Dickory Dock “Mouse Clocks” were produced by the New Haven Company and reportedly failed to work well. The Model IV, patented on September 13, 1910, was manufactured by the Sessions Clock Company. This model had a different shape (the Horolovar reproduction is closest to this shape). The clock was smaller, simpler, more reliable and less costly to produce. The Model IV had a pendulum regulated 8-day movement at the top of the clock, and only struck at the one o’clock hour.
The Horolovar Reproduction, Dickory, Dickory, Dock clock was on the market around 1966 to 1970 and these can often be found in various states of operation on auction sites.
Reference
1 . Elmer Ellsworth Dungan and the Dickory Dickory Dock Clock, by Charles Terwilliger, Supplement to the Bulletin of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Inc., Summer 1966.
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