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| Joseph Bachner |
Note to any Bachner descendants who might find this: this story is based on newspaper accounts from the time, nothing more. Readers can form their own opinions.
The vast majority of this story comes from articles in the Clarion and a few other newspapers. I was going to make it very detailed, but I changed my mind since some details are not important. This story takes a twist you will not expect. Honestly it would make a decent movie if written right. No one has probably even thought about this story in 100 years and no one alive today lived through it. This is the story of Joseph Bachner's time in Princeton.
Joseph Bachner was born in Paris, France in 1852. He lived in New York for a short time when he arrived in the US and then moved to Chicago. He married Mary Marceline Lambert April 15, 1882 in Manhattan. They had nine children, though not all lived to adulthood. In 1885, Mary filed for divorce because of bigamy. A charge he was also arrested for. As it turned out, some busy-body decided to show Mary a document showing that Joseph was married to someone else. But the name on the document was only similar and not actually Mr Bachner. The charges were dropped and they stayed married. This is just a small precursor of things to come. In addition to being a businessman, he was also an inventor that held many patents.
At this point, I am going to skip to the part where he comes to Princeton. In September of 1899, Joseph Bachner visited Princeton as a guest of Julius Oswald, a local jeweler. The newspaper stated that Mr Bachner was looking to build a factory to make "cheap" watches and clocks. In reality, he already had such a factory in Chicago, he was actually looking for a place to move it to. He arranged for some land to build on, some wealthy investors, and a tax abatement from the city. He brings some starting capital and machinery to the table. He manages to get funding from Dr Steele F. Gilmore (a long time dentist), Will H. Lewis, Robert N. Parrett (Princeton Light & Power), and Louis J. Oswald (a grocery store owner). On November 2, Mr Bachner returned to Princeton to do some paperwork. A board of directors was chosen that included: Joseph Bachner, Will H. & Andrew E. Lewis (Lewis Bros dry goods), Julius A. Oswald, and Dr Steele F. Gilmore. The Clarion states that work to build will begin "immediately" and it will be located at the corner of Hall and Water St. Today the location is in between Young's Auto Body and the rail road tracks on Hall St. Princeton exempted the company from city taxes until April 1, 1904. It was also reported that they were off to a slow start due to a shortage of bricklayers, but orders for clocks were already coming in. The building was completed by December 21 and was ready for machinery to be moved in. This sounds like record pace to me.
By January 12 of 1900, it was reported that the factory may start up by the next week. They have a "horde" of applicants and ads were even placed in the Evansville newspaper. Orders were still coming in and Bachner estimated they would eventually hire 300 people when all was said and done. On January 18, the boiler was fired up and Joseph Bachner gave tours to some VIPs. The article states that they still haven't brought in the machines yet, but they have installed the "line shafting". They used overhead drive shafts with belts and pulleys to run the machines in those days. Hansen was set up that way originally and some photos survive, such as this one:
By February 19, twenty-five people are hard at work so far, but they are still not running at capacity. March 2, 40 people are now working. It was also reported that work on a new foundry building started. This building will be to the north of the factory. The public is now welcome to tour the factory on Saturdays from 10 to 12. On April 9, the foundry fired up for the first time, just over a month after construction begun. The clock factory was up to 70 people now.
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| Map from 1901 showing the location of Bachman Timepiece/ Princeton Clock Company |
In the May 9 issue of the Clarion, it is announced that Julius Hansen is now the "superintendent of the machine department on the first floor." The article says "Mr Hansen served his apprenticeship in Denmark and has held several responsible positions in this country." I'm guessing that the announcement was written by Joseph Bachner himself to help advertise and talk up the business.
On June 15 it was reported that disaster strikes as a large rainstorm came to Princeton and started flooding the town. The Clarion says that Bachner Timepiece's engine and boiler rooms were flooded with water. The plant was shut down temporarily.
Out of nowhere, in the Clarion on July 18, for reasons not explained by the paper, the board of directors was pressuring Joseph Bachner into resigning as superintendent of the factory. He got lawyers involved and it is noted how he owns considerable stock in the company. The next day, Joseph Bachner resigns from the company that bears his name, but still keeps his financial interest.
August 29, the Clarion reports of a gas stove exploding in Joseph Bachner's home on Spring street. It caused little damage, but suspicious none the less. In the grand scheme of things, this may have been just a coincidence, but the next day, Bachner's interest in the company is bought out by Ross McGinnis. This ended all potential legal matters between Joseph Bachner and the board of directors.
Then suddenly, this happened....
On September 2, Joseph Bachner's 16 year old son, Henry, was arrested by the town marshal. It turns out he had been using the new foundry at Bachner Timepiece to make counterfeit coins with the help of other boys his age. This was reported in the Princeton, Mount Carmel, and Evansville newspapers. Knowing that he was being investigated, Henry went to Chicago several weeks prior. When he returned, he was apprehended by Marshal Dan Haley (accompanied by a Clarion reporter) as he entered E.B. Funk's furniture store on the square. Many accounts say he was making nickles, dimes, and quarters. It may not sound like much but adjusting for inflation it adds up. I can't find an inflation calculator that goes back to 1900. I can only find back to 1913 and even then, a dime equals $3 in today's money. Days later, Henry Bachner is released on $200 bond. By September 11, more people were arrested for using counterfeit money, some of it even spent at the county fair. They were later released for lack of evidence, but they had worked out a deal to testify against Henry Bachner. On September 14, Henry Bachner's trial started in federal court in Evansville. He waived examination and was bound over to a grand jury in Indianapolis in October. In attendance were City Marshal Haley, Deputy Marshal McClurkin, Policeman Lee Morton, and Constable McAfee.
On November 24, without surprise, Henry Bachner was indicted on counterfeiting charges by the grand jury and was held over for trial. The Clarion said he "may go to reform school". He pleaded ignorance of the law stating he did not think it was against the law to make counterfeit money. He claimed he thought it was only against the law if you try to spend it. I can't find any articles about his trial, other than it took place. It may be because he was under aged, but I am not sure they took that into consideration back then. Strangely, The Chicago Tribune reported on December 13 that Henry
Bachner was arrested by Chief Deputy US Marshal Rowe at Oak Park (a
suburb of Chicago) charged with spending counterfeit money. I'm willing to bet that US Marshalls were following him by
that point. I can find no articles saying how Henry Bachner's trail(s) ended. If he was ever incarcerated, he would have been released no later than 1906. He married and had 7 children, the first born in 1907. He died February 13, 1920.
Back in Princeton, on November 29, 1900, Bachner Timepiece files to change it's name to Princeton Clock Company. The hearing was on January 21, 1901 and passed. The Clarion states that it is a compliment to rename the factory after the city that built it. And to me it makes more than enough sense that they wanted to take the Bachner name off of it.
In September 1901, Julius Hansen resigned from the Princeton Clock Company and went back to work for Herman Vollmer. I think he saw what was coming. Eventually, after lawsuits and a receivership, the Princeton Clock Company went under. I would say that the original investors were not as enthusiastic about maintaining a clock company as Bachner and Oswald. They had their own businesses to take care of. It is unclear to me what happened to what remained of the company exactly, but there is a hint that it moved and set up shop again in Rochelle, IL (west of Chicago).
The building was later leased to the Gardner Printing Company. They later moved to Evansville. It was also used by Sexton Manufacturing Company from Fairfield, IL as a garment factory. Due to labor troubles, it was moved to Fairfield. A Clarion article from October 1917 asked if the building was a "Jonah"? This is the last time the Princeton Clock Company is mentioned in the Clarion with the exception of a few obituaries.
Digging a little further into Joseph Bachner's life, I discovered that in December 1908, he took a trip on the Lusitania. For those who don't know, that was a ship owned by the White Star Line, the company that owned the Titanic. The Lusitania was most famous for being torpedoed and sank by a German U-boat in 1915.
I'm going to summarize a lot of articles that I found about Joseph Bachner before and after he came to Princeton. I found many many articles describing the following sequence of events:
1. Bachner comes to town proposing to move his or set up a new factory that makes watches and clocks and promising to hire 100+ people
2. The community invests some money
3. Bachman asks for land to be donated
4. tax abatements are given
5. An actual factory is optional, but if there is one, it goes into receivership
6. Bachman sells his share of the company and leaves town
In addition to Princeton, this or something similar happened in the following towns: Sterling,IL, Appleton,WI, Stevens Point,WI, Springfield,IL, Tulsa,OK, Vincennes,IN, Mainistee,MI, and there are probably a couple more including Rochelle,Il mentioned earlier.
Joseph Bachner died October 1, 1929 in Chicago. He has a multitude of descendants. Many of which are very wealthy successful business men and women. Some even hold their own patents.
As for his part in Hansen's history, he gave Julius some experience in running and supervising a factory. Not to mention he was a first-hand witness to all of this. I doubt that Julius purchased any of the machines from the Princeton Clock Company because he would have had to store them somewhere for a while before they would have been used at his factory.
One last note on Bachner, someone is selling a poster of one of his patents on Etsy.
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