Hamilton Celebrates their 130th Anniversary in their Hometown of Lancaster, PA

For their 130th anniversary, Hamilton employed a bicoastal celebration strategy that highlighted the brand’s key strengths. Thomas Calara already brought you a story about part one of the big celebration, the annual Behind the Camera Awards, which were turned up a notch this year to note the big milestone and included the release of the new Black & Gold collection, ready for any red (or black) carpet event. A Hollywood based event obviously highlights Hamilton’s long and proud history of involvement in the movie making business, a part of their story that is filled with no small amount of glitz and glamor. But when you’ve been around for over a century, you’re not likely to be defined by only one thing, and the second leg of Hamilton’s anniversary festivities in their hometown of Lancaster, PA put a focus on the brand’s early history, which is a uniquely American story. 

Before we dig into how Hamilton connected with their roots in Lancaster last week, it’s worth mentioning the flexing involved in staging two events, back to back, on opposite sides of the country. This just isn’t something most brands would attempt, and while the size and scale of the events were certainly different (I imagine the vibe in Lancaster was considerably more subdued, overall, than whatever happened in LA with a roster of movie stars), the message Hamilton is sending here feels pretty clear. Just as the watches themselves run the gamut between every imaginable style and category, the brand wants to lean into all aspects of their heritage, and doesn’t place any single key element of their history above any other. It might seem like a relatively minor thing, but consider other brands and how they rely on the popularity and strength of a single product line above all else. Hamilton doesn’t seem interested in doing that. 

Lancaster is a city of just under 60,000 located approximately 60 miles west of Philadelphia. To say the town has a “Norman Rockwell energy” is an understatement. Arriving from Philly, you approach Lancaster after driving through miles and miles of rural farmland, and getting into the bustling downtown area feels like arriving in civilization again. That centrally located downtown neighborhood is easily walkable, and it appears that a lot of the 19th century architecture has been well preserved.

Before the actual anniversary party, Hamilton sought to highlight their connections to the Lancaster community by taking the small contingent of press on a brief tour of the brand’s earliest days and an immersion in watch and clock history at the National Watch and Clock Museum. Stop number one was the Hamilton Watch Complex, home to the Hamilton company from their earliest days in the 1890s. The original building was actually constructed in 1874 and was first home to the Adams and Perry Watch Company, but was greatly expanded in the intervening years and by the time Hamilton took control near the turn of the century grounds had taken on a far grander scope. 

The complex was home to Hamilton until 1980, when they moved to a facility closer to downtown Lancaster. Today, the factory has been converted to luxury condominiums. You might think that this would make it an uninteresting place to visit, but the interior has been decorated with vintage Hamilton advertisements, clocks, and ephemera throughout. Everywhere you look, there’s a reminder of the building’s history, and I found myself wondering if any residents had been bitten by the watch bug simply by being surrounded by Hamilton “stuff” day in and day out. 

The casual tour through what’s now known as the Clock Towers (for the two large clock towers on either end of the massive structure) was led by Ryan Miller of Brent Miller Jewelers, a Hamilton authorized dealer in Lancaster. Brent Miller purchased a unit in the Clock Towers several years ago, and has made it something of a small Hamilton focused museum unto itself. Photos of the interior of the old factory line the walls of the unit, and a vintage watchmakers bench can be found in one of the bedrooms. A highlight of our time in the Clock Towers was seeing a pair of massive vaults that were once used to store raw materials on the grounds. One of them is open and we were able to crowd into the small, claustrophobic space. The other, used primarily for the storage of precious metals, is currently being used privately by a Clock Towers resident. We weren’t able to take a look inside, obviously, but the massive outer vault door has been preserved, which was impressive enough in its own right. 

From the old Hamitlon factory, we made our way to the National Watch and Clock Museum in nearby Columbia. Visiting this museum is an absolute must for anyone who is even remotely interested in the history of timekeeping. As you’d expect, there are a great many American made clocks and watches on display, including a large exhibit of antique public clocks, tall clocks, and early pocket watches made by Hamilton, Waltham, and other American watchmakers. But there are also significant displays highlighting Asian clockmaking (including clocks that use burning incense to track time) and traditional European watchmaking as well. Other exhibits included a retrospective of quartz watches featured in James Bond films (there are more than you think), character clocks and watches, and an amazing demonstration of the Engle Clock, a highly complicated clock featuring over 40 moving figures, two organs that still operate and play music, and timekeeping features that track months, days of the week, the phases of the moon, and the tides. 

The proper 130th anniversary party was held later in the evening at Brent Miller. The store sells many popular watch brands, but on the night of the celebration the focus was entirely on Hamilton. Vitrines were filled with rare vintage Hamilton watches, including those that serve to highlight the brand’s connection to the military, the world of movies, and advancements in watchmaking itself through the use of electric movements. What made the night special, and the reason it’s worth covering at all in these pages, was the large turnout of local Hamilton enthusiasts and fans. It was apparent that this relatively small community feels a real connection to Hamilton’s history. Many have stories of parents or grandparents who worked in the factory, and it seemed like a disproportionate number of attendees had their own unique Hamilton watches in tow to proudly show off to other guests and Hamilton CEO Vivian Stauffer. 

Just as the Hollywood event saw Hamilton unveil the Black and Gold collection, the Lancaster event saw a new release as well. Though reportedly sold out before the party started, Hamilton took the Lancaster visit as an opportunity to release a new pocket watch. The American Classic Railroad Pocket Watch was made in a run of just 917 pieces (in honor of the factory’s address at 917 Columbia Ave) and is the rare example of a new pocket watch being produced by a large brand. The watch is inspired by classic railroad pocket watches, and features a crisp white dial and large Arabic numerals at each hour in an ornate typeface. The outer minutes track is made up of individual Arabic numerals for all sixty minutes, lending the necessary at-a-glance legibility required for using this watch in a traditional railroading application. A $1,395 pocket watch in 2022 might seem anachronistic, but given the turnout and enthusiasm for Hamitlon in Lancaster (again, a city of fewer than 60,000 people) it’s no surprise that every single one is spoken for. 

At 130 years old, Hamilton deserves credit for paying respect to every facet of their story. Their unique place in the industry as a brand that began in the United States and eventually relocated to Switzerland provides for a perspective on the very idea of heritage that no other brand can really share. Here we have a Swiss brand, part of an even larger conglomeration of luxury watchmakers, reaching across an ocean to celebrate an anniversary with people who still hold a deep connection to and respect for that brand. It’s a reminder that many of the biggest names in the watch industry came from humble and surprising beginnings, and of the importance of honoring those beginnings in an authentic way.