About this time Theodore Terry's clock factory, at Ansonia, was destroyed by fire.

A large portion of the stock was saved, though in a damaged condition, much of which was worth nothing--the tools and machinery being but little better than so much old iron.

Terry knowing that Barnum was largely interested in real estate in East Bridgeport, and anxious to have it improved, thought he could make a good arrangement with him for building a factory there for the manufacture of clocks, and did so.

Terry had a large quantity of old clocks in a store in New York--many of them old-fashioned and unsaleable, and thousands of these were not worth fifty cents apiece.
Terry and Barnum now proposed forming a joint-stock company, putting in their old rubbish as stock, and estimating it, most likely, at four times its value in cash.

They built a factory in East Bridgeport, and made preparations for manufacturing.