About time: Oberlin High School alumnus crafts timepiece as tribute to his hometown

OBERLIN — James Henderson's grandfather loved buying watches. Every year during visits to Oberlin, he'd stop at Herrick Jewelers on West College Street and buy a watch as a present for his only grandson. Henderson said he grew up feeling the weight of a watch on his wrist and enjoying the familiar reflex of glancing at the time. Now the 1986 graduate of Oberlin High School is paying tribute to his hometown. Henderson launched the Oberlin Watch Co. and, with help from professional timepiece designers, is ready to release the OBIE1. The wristwatch, with a white face and red and blue dials — Oberlin High School's colors — is a tribute to the place where he grew up. "For the people who really love mechanical watches, and I'm one of them, there's the argument that it's great to take it out in the morning to wind it, to hear it click," said Henderson, 52, who now lives in Salem, Massachusetts. He's led an adventurous life, traveling the world. After graduating from the University of Oregon, Henderson taught in Japan, where he met his wife — they've since lived in Finland, Portugal and Scotland. While teaching in Finland, he spotted a heavy watch that drew his eye and reminded him of his grandfather. "It wasn't inexpensive, but I had a little money and decided I'd earned it," Henderson remembers. "That was what I'd say was the first real, serious bite toward a renewed love of timepieces." Over the following years, he found himself drawn to watches, and wound up selling them for prestigious companies, learning how artistry collides with wheels and cogs. But Henderson always found his way back to academia. Today, his day job is running a nonprofit adult education program. On evenings and weekends, his attention turns to his love of watchmaking. For much of a quarter-century he's worked with timepieces, friends have asked Henderson to make them custom watches. When an Oberlin Facebook group started clamoring for a model, he decided it was time. In February, he launched Oberlin Watch Co., and this month is introducing the first run of the OBIE1. Only 100 have been made. The watches are being sold online for $97.97; for information, visit tempusfugit.watch. Henderson said he wanted to create something that would help unite Oberlin, which he said has been fractured in recent years. "I was very concerned where I thought the town-gown relationships had eroded," he said, referring to the way Oberlin College is often viewed by local residents. Henderson said the watch draws inspiration from several sources in town. He sent photos of Finney Chapel and Tappan Square to a close friend and French watch designer to build a sense of Oberlin's architecture into the OBIE1. Another influence was the Great Kipton Train Wreck of April 18, 1891, Henderson said. According to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, a mail train and the Toledo Express smashed into each other head-on while running at full speed, just west of Oberlin. Investigators determined one of the engineer's watches had run four minutes slow, putting the two trains on a collision course. To prevent similar disasters, the regional rail companies hired Webb C. Ball, a Cleveland jeweler and watchmaker. He developed reliable watches for engineers, and he is credited with vastly improving the safety of about 125,000 miles of rail tracks across North America. Contact Jason Hawk at (440) 329-7122 or news@lcnewspapers.com.