The William Sheppard Woodside Family Classical 'George Washington' Shelf Clock, made for the American Market by Jacques Nicolas Pierre Francois Dubuc (1743-1817), Paris, Circa 1805-15

William Sheppard Woodside (1799-1859), Ireland and Baltimore, Maryland;

James S. Woodside (1834-1917), Baltimore, son;

Harry Malloy Woodside (1846-aft. 1930), Baltimore and Norfolk, Virginia, brother;

E. Rachel (Woodside) Benedict (1875-1955), Baltimore and Parkdale, Oregon, daughter;

Junia Lockwood (Benedict) Nelson (b. 1915), Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, daughter;

Barry Benedict Nelson, son;

Christie’s, New York, Important American Furniture, Silver, Outsider and Folk Art, September 20, 2016, sale 12186, lot 885. 

A similar example is located at the Museum of the American Revolution, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (acc. no. 2003.00.0448a). This clock is distinguished by its long history in the Woodside family of Baltimore. Very few of the approximately thirty known examples of these clocks have survived with histories of ownership and it is interesting that this clock’s earliest known owner lived in Baltimore, the home of the recipient of Dubuc’s 1815 letter cited above. As recorded by Rachel (Woodside) Benedict in 1953, this clock was among the possessions of her grandfather Dr. William Sheppard Woodside (1799-1859) (Letter, Rachel Benedict to her daughter Junia, 2 March 1953, p. 7, family documents). Woodside was born in Ireland and in about 1820 immigrated to Baltimore where he married Rachel P. Beatty (1804-1885) in 1821. As Woodside arrived in America at a young age and several years after these clocks were made, it is unlikely though not impossible that he was the first owner. If he did not purchase this clock directly from a local retailer, he may have received it from his wife’s family, who lived in Baltimore but about which little else is known, or otherwise acquired it during his successful forty-year career in the city. As Master of Transportation for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Woodside was a powerful and influential member of the Baltimore community. The city directories indicate that he was also a dry goods merchant and lived in the city center at 36 Conway Street. Published in the Federal Gazette, his funeral was held at the Twelfth Presbyterian Church and he was buried in the city’s Green Mount Cemetery.

According to his granddaughter, the clock passed from Woodside to his son, James S. Woodside (1834-1917) and thence to James’ sole heir and younger brother, Harry M. Woodside (1846-after 1930). Like their father, James and Harry were well-known Baltimore merchants; James lived his entire life in Baltimore where he died at his home at 1020 St. Paul Street while Harry lived in his hometown until at least 1920 and later moved to Norfolk, Virginia where he is last recorded in the US Federal Census in 1930. He may have moved in about 1925 as family documents indicate that the clock, along with other treasured family heirlooms, were shipped at this time from Baltimore to Parkdale, Oregon, the home of Harry’s daughter and the recorder of the clock’s early history, Rachel (Woodside) Benedict (1875-1955). Its subsequent history is well documented in family papers, which reveal the exact dates on which the clock was passed to the following two generations. Never out of the family since at least the mid-nineteenth century, the clock is being offered at auction by Dr. William Sheppard Woodside’s great-great grandson.