March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Time is of the essence > Castine clock to chime again

CASTINE — The striking of the hour will echo again through the streets of Castine when restoration work on the century-old town clock is completed in November.

The clock in the steeple tower of the Trinitarian Church on Main Street ceased operating several years ago. A group of residents who miss the clock’s hourly pronouncements and value its works as a historic treasure of the late 19th century initiated a fund-raising campaign last summer.

“It’s an antique gem,” said Tom Bartlett of the Town Clock Fund Committee. The group, which is nearing its fund-raising goal of $15,000, aims to “make sure it’s going to run for another 100 years,’ Bartlett said Thursday. A recent inspection of the four clock faces, however, revealed that repair and restoration will be more costly than anticipated. The cost of the project now is estimated at more than $20,000.

Because of the enthusiastic public response at the outset of the campaign, Bartlett is hopeful that the additional funds required will become available when contributions are received from people who have not responded to the initial appeal.

The fund has received 200 donations from Castine area residents and from donors throughout the country. A substantial contribution by Castine residents James and Barbara West in memory of the late novelist Mary McCarthy, has made possible the installation of an auto-winding system.

Bartlett attributes the campaign’s success to the efforts of volunteers and town office employees who tabulate the contributions.

The clockworks for the most part have remained in perfect condition because of careful maintenance over the years. The restoration project includes cleaning the clock mechanism and making repairs when necessary, installing the auto-winding system, and refurbishing the four clock faces including gold leaf on the newly installed hands, numerals and minute markers.

Some clock parts have been dismantled already and sent to Bryant Engineering in Wayne, the contractor hired to do the restoration work and to install the auto-winding system.

The clock was given to the town by Sarah Perkins Johnston, a prominent Castine resident. When she died in 1889 her will specified that funds be provided for purchase of a town clock.

In 1890 the residents accepted Johnston’s gift, and the Trinitarian Congregational Society agreed to have the clock be placed in its church tower. That year the clock was shipped to Castine from Boston where it had been designed by Edward Howard and Son.

The clock is an arch-back type, according to committee member Justin Cooper who considers its works a “superb example of America’s vault into the forefront of mechanical devices in the latter part of the 19th century.”

The faces of the clock appear below the belfry and are part of the upper chamber of the church tower. Inside the dark chamber is a small pine shed which stores the clockworks. Directly below the chamber is another which houses the clock’s pendulum. Movement of the pendulum is maintained by large weights that fall slowly in their cases as time ticks by.

As in a cuckoo clock, the weights must be raised periodically by a windlass, a simple winding device, to keep the pendulum swinging. The windlass also lifts a separate set of weights that provide the striking force for the sounding of the hours. The turning power of the clock is transmitted to the clock faces on each side of the church tower simultaneously by a series of gears and universal joints.

Before the clock stopped ticking three years ago, young Castiners from the church Sunday school scrambled aloft climbing ladders through narrow passages each week to wind the clock manually.


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