| Andover town clock strikes 100 |
| By Alison Aloisio |
Andover marked the 100th birthday of its Town Hall clock Sunday, with memories, a blessing, a clock cake and a visit from a clock club.
About 80 people attended the two-hour open house for the E. Howard clock, which began keeping time on Nov. 15, 1909.
Several offered memories of how the clock and its bell has been an integral part of their lives.
Dinah Cutting said that when her children were young, they would often hike a nearby hill.
“I’d tell them, ‘when you hear the clock ring five, you head home,’” she said.
Joyce Morgan said she first came to Andover years ago to teach school. The day before school started she took up residence at a boarding house across the street from the clock.
Already worried about the first day of school, she heard the clock’s bell every hour through the night.
“I didn’t sleep a wink,” Morgan said.
But her awareness of the clock bell changed over time.
Ten years later, she said, she was at a ball game in the village. She asked another spectator what time it was. His response:
“The town clock just rang. Didn’t you hear it?”
The clock’s admirers also included several members of the Maine chapter of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors.
Tom Vance, a clocksmith from Bristol, and his wife, Nan, said their organization has compiled a list of about 100 tower clocks located throughout Maine.
Another member, Harry Hepburn III of Harrison, has worked on the Andover clock over the past 25 years.
He noted that the accuracy of such clocks, which must be wound and operate by means of a pendulum, can be affected by barometric pressure.
So while they do not always keep “Greenwich time,” he said, “they do pretty well.”
The Andover clock, manufactured by the Howard Co. of Boston, was purchased for $600 by the local branch of the King’s Daughters Society, a philanthropic organization.
Its parts were shipped by rail in wooden boxes, Hepburn said. One large box was converted to a pendulum to operate the bell.
The instructions called for the Andover assemblers to gather rocks to fill the box, which weighed about 2,000 pounds when full, he said.
Peggy Madigan, the current keeper and winder of the clock and bell mechanisms, described her bi-weekly ascension of the tower.
Once atop the tower, she said, she winds each mechanism 90 times, pausing to rest in between and enjoy the views out the windows.
“So watch what you do, because I could be up there,” she warned residents, to laughter.
Elissa Thibodeau, chair of the Town Hall Restoration Committee, offered thanks all around to those who have donated time and money to the clock and the celebration.
The day’s program concluded with a blessing of the clock by Pastor Jane Rich.
Rich said it is the hope of townspeople that the clock will still be ringing in 2109, and that “future generations will thank us for our stewardship.”
“May the clock continue to ring over our valley, and all who live in it.” |
