You could blame it on a Catechism of the Catholic Church or, maybe, a changing marketplace. You could even blame it on Fidel Castro.

Whatever the reason, Richard Herschede Jr., who passed away Monday in Starkville at age 82,  will be remembered not as an heir to a great fortune amassed in the Gilded Age, but as an astute businessman and the last of four generations of Herschedes who established the Herschede Hall Clock Company as America’s first great grandfather clock company.

“The Herschede name is a great American name in clock manufacturing,” said Stuart Vance, who with some partners bought the company in 1973, 13 years after the family relocated to Starkville from Cincinnati. “They were well-respected in the jewelry business and well-known in the clock business.”

Frank Herschede, the patriarch

At the turn of the 19th century, Cincinnati was home to a large population of immigrants who began arriving in the 1830s and 1840s from what would later become Germany.

Among them was Frank Herschede, born in 1857. According to a company history, a 16-year-old Frank began working as an apprentice watch and clock repairman in 1873, going into business for himself in 1877, selling jewelry, watches and diamonds. He began purchasing importing movements and having cases made in a local cabinet shop. In 1902, he incorporated Herschede Hall Clock Company.

Over the next 20 years, Frank’s clocks won prizes in prominent exhibitions, soon rivaling the clocks made in Europe. The business boomed. By the early 1920s Herschede’s company had opened branch sales offices in New York City, then in Chicago and San Francisco. In 1908, Frank Herschede built a home that would become known as The Herschede Mansion, a unique mixture of Greek Revival and Italian Renaissance Revival.

“It was a large house, but they did have seven children,” said Debra Burgess, a historian at the University of Cincinnati, who has written extensively about the Cincinnati at the turn of the 19th century. “They were a prominent family, but they didn’t flaunt their wealth. Like a lot of the German Catholics and German Jews, when they wanted to show how they had moved up in society, they did it through supporting the arts or serving the community.”

Frank put the mansion to use in that effort, Burgess said.

“In my research, I learned that over a 30-year period, Frank and Sadie brought 24 orphans from the Catholic orphanage in their home as they were aging out,” Burgess said. “The girls worked in the home and the boys mostly in the clock company. One boy became a chauffeur. I wondered, initially, if this was a form of indentured servitude. But it wasn’t. It was a way for these children to transition into adult life.”

Frank died in 1922 and son, Walt, took over the business, which continued to flourish.

In 1929 the company employed about 300 workers and had sales of $1.2 million, which translates into $21.5 million in today’s dollars.

Hard times

The next 30 years were a struggle for the company. The Great Depression, followed by labor issues and a shrinking market for large pieces of formal furniture like grandfather clocks, had taken a toll. The company sought to diversify, producing mantle clocks as well as products outside the clock field, including high-grade lenses used by the military for sights on bombers and tanks and parking meters, the latter endeavor leading to an unfortunate deal with Cuba.

In 1959, the North Mississippi Industrial Development Association, something of a precursor to today’s Golden Triangle Development LINK, recruited the Herschede Hall Clock Company to Starkville, where it moved into a factory next door to Vance’s furniture company. It began operations in May 1960, under the guidance of Richard Herschede Sr., better known as Dick Herschede.

The Herschede company had started making parking meters in 1936. In the late 1950s, it reached an agreement with the Cuban government for the purchase of $400,000 worth.

When Fidel Castro seized control of the Cuban government, the company was never paid for the meters. According to a study by Creighton University, about 5,900 American claims for confiscated property were certified by the federal Foreign Claims Settlement Commission. Though originally valued at nearly $1.9 billion, adjustments for inflation in the years since mean they are today worth $7 billion or more.

Ree (nee Speetjens) Herschede married Richard Jr. in 1966, and what she knows of the company’s history comes largely from her husband and her father-in-law.

“I never knew the exact figure, but it was a substantial amount,” Ree Herschede said of the Cuban losses. “There was a lawsuit involved because of this money, but nobody could ever do anything about it. When John Robert Arnold (among Vance’s purchasing partners) bought the company, the claim went to him as part of the sale. But to the best of my knowledge he never got any money out of it, either.”

The last Herschede in the clock business

Richard Jr. graduated high school in Cincinnati the same year the company relocated to Starkville. He studied accounting at Mississippi State University, earning a bachelor’s in 1963, followed by a Program of Management Development at Harvard Business School in 1972.

After graduation, Richard began his career as the office manager for Herschede Hall Clock Company. Twenty-five years later, he retired in 1986 as president of Arnold Industries. He also served on the board of directors for the Mississippi Manufacturers Association.

In 1983, Richard Jr. confirmed the delivery of the last three clocks made by the Herschede Hall Clock Co.

Richard and Ree were married 56 years and had three children: a daughter Chris, and sons Trey and Matt.

Although part of a prominent family, Ree said no one in the family ever considered themselves to be a part of any sort of aristocracy. They may have been from a famous family, but they weren’t Rockerfeller or Kennedy famous.

“There wasn’t a fortune to be had,” Ree said. “The family were all devout Catholics and believed big families were a blessing. Every generation had a lot of kids, so the money was dispersed to a lot of children over the years. Pop (Richard Sr.) had seven children, so he wasn’t rich, either. Richard (Jr.) did get a disbursement when the company was sold, but it wasn’t a lot. It went pretty quick.

“Richard was still young when he retired, so we went on to have other jobs. We moved to Colorado soon after he retired and he worked there, but when our youngest son was learning to drive and talking about doing doughnuts in the snow, it was time to come back home.”

Being part of a famous family may not have produced a fortune, but it was fun in other ways.

“The mansion in Cincinnati is still open for tours, and Richard had some high school friends there so he enjoyed going back,” Ree said. “You’re not going to believe this, but I visited there only three times and got pregnant every time I went.

“After the third time, I didn’t want to go to Cincinnati anymore.”

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

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