Aaron Smith was a clockmaker who apprenticed to Richard Manning, an early pioneer in the trade. Aaron Smith was engaged in his business before the American Revolution and was therefore prevented from joining the battle at Bunker Hill, since his services as a blacksmith were needed for the manufacture of bayonets. He built his Federal style house on South Green at about the same time, 1776. Many of Smith’s clocks were valued highly and his reputation grew. Two generations after him continued in the trade, and occupied shops in Salem MA. Smith was married to Lucy Baker.

Sources

• T.F. Waters, Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, vol. I, p. 465
• MACRIS