![]() He opened his trading house at a transitional point between two eras, at a time when the Swiss watch industry had scarcely recovered from the shock of 1876. He sometimes worked for the other watchmakers including the celebrated Jurgensens, but above all he supplied watches to Favre-Perret. To place this little anecdote on its historical context, we note in passing that Ariste Calame showed his republican sympathies in 1648- the year of the Neuchatel revolution which saw the overthrow of the representative of the King of Prussia, who was then the country’s sovereign.Īfter an apprenticeship as an assembler, he finally set up on his own in a small workshop at Cret-Callant which he turned into a watch trading house, with first one, then two and then five workers, whom he looked upon as friends. At that time a kilo of bread cost 10 centimes and a pound of beef 24 centimeters. ![]() John’s Days, when workers received their hall yearly wages. ![]() In 1864 a descendant of Jacob Calame returned to Le Locle, Ariste Calame set up house at No 7 Grande Rue, and paid 6 francs 70 in tax twice a year, on St. His son Julian was also a watchmaker, but in Saint-Imier. He was a watchmaker-farmer and had at various times housed soldiers and horses when allied troops (Austrians, Russians and Poles) had passed through the area in the ware against Napoleon in 1815. Le Creux-des-Biches near La Ferriere, twenty kilometers or so from Le Locle.Īnd it was here that the matchmaking dynasty began in 1820 you find Jacob Calame, owner of a domain here with extensive buildings, meadows and pasture lands. So it was that in 1650 Guillaume Calame left Le Locle, attracted by the advantages offered by the Prince-Bishop of Basel, sovereign of a territory corresponding to the present Jura including the Franches-Montaganes at the north-east frontier of the Calangin seignuery- now the eastern end of the district of La Chaux-de-Fonds. This states that the lord of the region, Lord de Valangin Rene de Chilland, was promoting the members of this family to the rank of "free-dwellers".įinding small holders to occupy the land before others took it over was a policy followed for a long time by the Lords of Valangin and Neuchatel, but also by their neighbors. They are clearly older because the name Calame is to be found in the archives in Le Locle in a document of that time. The known roots of this family go back to 1537. The trade mark Zodiac, now over a hundred years old, was only registered in 1908, after having been used for years, by the grandson of the founder of the factory which was run at that time under the family name of a dynasty of watchmakers: Calame.
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