<a href=”https://p7be2c.a2cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/John-Kauff-watch.jpg”><img src=”https://p7be2c.a2cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/John-Kauff-watch-300×272.jpg” alt=”John Kauff Pocket Watch” width=”300″ height=”272″ align=”right”></a>Denis, I want to thank you personally, as I feel that my family owes you a debt of gratitude. This watch has been laying at the bottom of drawers, largely forgotten for a century or more. Your skillful restoration, taking every care to preserve the antique dignity of this watch, while allowing it to take it’s place among the prized family heirlooms is very deeply appreciated. You had every opportunity to charge me a LOT more money, as you and I both know that I would have paid almost any amount for this restoration, but your honesty, professionalism, and golden-rule virtues are traits that are so uncommon in today’s greed-induced world. I would recommend you without reservation to anybody. My sincere thanks, friend….and God bless. I hope our paths cross again soon. This watch has now been owned by 8 generations of my family. My father will be 91 on his next birthday, and is the oldest son of his father. My father remembers this watch, as a child, but has never seen it run. The history of George & Jonas Roush can be found on the internet, by searching for “The Shenandoah Valley Roushes.” This watch is believed to have belonged to one of them, but we are uncertain of which. George Roush married Catherine Zerkle approx 1781, and had a son named John Roush. Jonas Roush married Barbara Fox approx 1785, and had a daughter named Regina. John Roush married Regina Roush, and had a son named Benjamin Roush, who married Sophia Altman in 1839. Benjamin and Sophia had a daughter named Sarah Elizabeth Roush, who married John Michael Kauff I 8/6/1865. Their oldest son was John Michael Kauff II, and the watch was designated to be passed to the oldest living John. It passed to my grandfather, John Preston, on John Michael II’s death in 1947, and to my uncle John Richard, upon his father’s death in 1973. My father was the eldest son, but was not named John, so I intend to modify the lineage of the watch slightly, having received the watch when my father’s younger brother passed in 2005. It was a sad day when I received it, but my intent is to return it to my father to belong to his generation for as long as possible.
John Kauff
