Clueless in La Mesa

This photo is blurry. I'll swap it out as soon as one of you shares a better one. Thanks to all of you for being there, and thanks especially the organizers.

On the way back to La Mesa, Lupe and I snapped this photo of Great Grandpa Henry's stature in Cedar City.

Grandpa’s Pocket Watch

One summer between 1960 and 1968 a bunch of us cousins were at the farm. Grandma was cleaning out the southeast bedroom and she invited us in to look in the top drawer of one of the dressers. It was full of watches and other trinkets. She invited each one of us to select a treasure as a keepsake. My brother, David, picked a gold watch, and I grabbed this one.
None of them worked, so we just tucked them away with other loose items once we got home. I think we dismantled David’s watch. I tried a few times during high school to have a jeweler repair this silver watch, but no one could. I did have the original cracked crystal replaced.
Grandpa died while I was on my mission in Central America. Later, while studying at BYU in the early 1970’s, I was stressed and depressed over school and life’s decisions. For some reason I started fiddling with the watch, and to my surprise, it started ticking! I felt like Grandpa was reaching through the veil to encourage me -- and not be such a wimp.
The watch has started without fail every time I have wound it since then. It takes between 19 and 21 turns to wind it. It has a double back, as shown here. If the inscribed numbers are a date, then the watch case was made in September of 1914. The watch itself appears to have been made in 1878, meaning it had an owner prior to Grandpa. Could it have been Great Grandpa Henry?

The reason that the movement and case serial numbers are unrelated is because up until the 1920's, almost all American watches were sold separately from the watch cases. People would go to the local jewelry store, pick out a watch movement that they liked, and then with the money left over, they would pick out a watch case. Or, if they were more interested in fashion than the watch's time keeping ability, they would pick out a case they liked and used the money left over for the watch movement. The jeweler would then put the movement and the case together. With only a few exceptions, the watch companies and watch case companies were completely unrelated business.
In addition, watch cases tended to wear out much quicker than the watch movements. So, the owner would sometimes go through two or three cases over the life time of the watch. Obviously, these later cases can't be related to the movement serial number.
Even after the 1920's, when watch companies started selling cased watches, the watch companies still bought the watch cases from outside sources and the serial numbers were still unrelated.
Search Results For Serial "579971" (273,000 watches of this model were made)
Serial Number SN Range Quanty Name Year grade size code jewels Adj/reg/etc.
-------------- -------- ------ ---- ---- ----- ---- ------ ------ ------------
579971 579001 1000 ADV 1878 10* 18s hfg2lb 11j