The roots of the Sessions Clock Company go back to 1831, when Elisha Niles Welch began making wooden-movement shelf clocks in Forestville, Connecticut. Through a series of partnerships, bankruptcies, and acquisitions over the following decades, Welch consolidated several local clock businesses, eventually organizing the E. N. Welch Manufacturing Company in 1864.
In 1903, after financial difficulties, William E. Sessions and his family acquired control of the Welch company and reorganized it as the Sessions Clock Company, inheriting its factories, machinery, and designs. Sessions continued producing mechanical shelf and mantel clocks for several decades before shifting entirely to electric clocks by 1936, eventually closing its Forestville operations in the late 1960s after more than 130 years of continuous clockmaking on the site.