Claimed a Boston writer in 1786, “The poor peasant, who never saw a watch, will tell the time to a fraction, by the rising and setting of the moon, and some particular stars.” In contrast, many urban residents relied upon clock towers and the cries of the nightwatch. Despite their erratic performance, church clocks could be found by the sixteenth century in a growing number of cities and towns. On a dark winter morning in 1529, the Cologne student Herman Weinsberg wakened and left home for school, unaware that it was barely past midnight. When the clock tower struck one o’clock, he “thought
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