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Hiram Camp was born on April 9, 1811; the son of Deacon Samuel Camp, a farmer of Plymouth, Connecticut, and of his wife Jeannette Jerome, a sister of the clock-maker, Chauncey Jerome. His grandfather, Samuel Camp, was a Revolutionary soldier who saw service at Crown Point, Ticonderoga, and on Staten Island.
Hiram passed his boyhood on the farm, with slender schooling during those months when he might best be spared from farm labors.
Camp entered the Jerome shops at Bristol in 1829 and continued in business there with his uncle for twenty-four years. During just this period metal works and machine production were being introduced into the clock industry, with their accompanying lessening of the cost of production. Chauncey Jerome and Hiram Camp were largely instrumental in effecting this change. By 1837 the Jerome works had perfected a small brass-works clock that could be sold for $6. 00, the price later being reduced to seventy-five cents. A branch of the Jerome works was opened in New Haven in 1843, and when the Bristol shops burned in 1845 the whole establishment was moved to that city. Camp supervised the erection of the New Haven plant. In 1851 he went into business for himself, manufacturing clock movements, and in 1853 he organized the New Haven Clock Company (of which he was president), a joint stock company capitalized at $20, 000 for the purpose of making cases. The Jerome company failed in 1855, and the New Haven Clock Company purchased its entire business. With the elimination of the Jerome competition the New Haven Clock Company soon became the world's greatest clock manufacturing organization. It reached out for world markets; it improved its clock-making machinery; it developed sound financial policies; it perfected the mass-production of cheap standardized time pieces, such as the nickel alarm clock and the pioneer "dollar watch"; it diversified production so as to cover all markets with a complete line of goods: metronomes, jewelers' regulators, electro-mechanical movements, telegraph devices, miniature clocks, and high-grade movements with periodized and ornate cases in granites and different kinds of woods. Camp continued as president of the company until 1892 and was a trustee until his death.
He was a religious man and made every effort to provide citizens with religious education .
His chief interest, aside from his regular labor, was in his church. He memorized his daily text and he exhibited a veritable passion for evangelization; he went from house to house with his Bible in his hand, he organized Sunday-schools, he supported city and frontier missions, he built a church next door to his own home, and he subscribed liberally to charities and religious education. With the evangelist D. C. Moody, he established the Mount Hermon Boys' School and the North-field Seminary for Young Ladies. He served as trustee for these institutions and at various times donated approximately $100, 000 to their support. Interest in Christian morality drew him to the Prohibition movement. He contributed to its campaign chest and he took the stump in its behalf. Finally he even accepted nomination as its candidate for governor in 1888.
He found time for numerous avocations. He served his city as selectman, councilman, and chief engineer of the fire department. As a Republican he represented his district in the Connecticut legislature of 1859 and held a place on its Finance Committee.
He was married twice: to Elvira Rockwell Skinner, and, after her death, to Lucy Davis.
