Issues → January/February 2012 → Features →

Here in New England: Caretaker of the Clock

What keeps small towns working are hundreds of unique, little-noticed tasks.

by Howard Mansfield

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Credit: Jarrod McCabe

Bob Fogg

Credit: Jarrod McCabe

Bob Fogg climbs into the tower

Credit: Jarrod McCabe

Bob Fogg stands in front of one of the three metal shafts that turn the hands on the clockfaces.

Credit: Jarrod McCabe

The strike train's heavy gears drive the hammer that hits the bell on the hour.

Credit: Jarrod McCabe

The iron frame supporting the time and strike mechanisms sits on a table bearing the manufacturer's logo.

Credit: Jarrod McCabe

Bob Fogg gazes down at Hancock's Main Street from his perch amid the clockwork.

One summer day in 1965, Bob Fogg, was at the Hancock, New Hampshire, town dump when the local fire chief said to him, "Hey, Bob, you've got a lot of free time--how'd you like to take care of the town clock?"

"And I didn't know anything about it," Fogg says, "but I did know that the clock was stopped at 10 minutes to 6:00. It wasn't working."

Fogg and one of the selectmen examined the meetinghouse's 1872 tower clock and found that a pin had come loose, jamming the gears. They hammered in a new pin, and then they found a packet of old papers that helped them figure out how to run the clock. The strike train--the gears that cause the hammer to hit the big 1820 Revere & Son bell--has to be wound one crank for each hour. It's a heavy crank, pulling about 500 pounds of weight in a chute that runs 65 feet to the meetinghouse basement. The much lighter time train, which keeps the clock ticking, has to be wound 70 turns a week.

Bob Fogg was 27 years old, and he thought nothing of racing up the steep steps and throwing his weight against the heavy crank that sets the strike hammer. He'd turn a week's worth--168 cranks--without a pause. On hot days, temperature in the 90s, he'd leave behind a pool of sweat. Now Fogg is 73, though you wouldn't know it. He's trim and his face is unlined. He takes his time coming up the stairs, rests before cranking, and breaks up the week's winding into two or three visits. Even though 20 cranks will leave him winded, he's fit. He works out at the local gym every weekday at 5:30 a.m. "I can't even remember back when I was 27, it was so long ago," he says. "I was a kid then. I could run up the stairs and crank those weights and run back down and not even be breathing hard."

Back then, Fogg knew nothing about clocks; he didn't even know that anyone had to wind the town clock. He'd grown up spending summers in town, had served in the Navy, and worked in one of the town garages. So he took some adult-education courses at the local middle school; students took clocks apart and cleaned, adjusted, and reassembled them. The tower clock, made by E. Howard & Co. in Roxbury, Massachusetts, has the same parts as other clocks; they're just larger. Sitting in its own small attic room, the clockworks have the heft of 19th-century industrial machinery. Big gears pull an oversized bicycle chain to move the weights and strike the bell, while smaller gears (or "wheels") keep the time with a gentle tick-tock. It's a combination of brute force and perfect balance, like watching a 300-pound ballerina twirling a pirouette in Swan Lake. And it doesn't take much to stop it. Fogg can lay his finger on part of the escapement--the small wheel that beats out the tick-tock--and all three clockfaces, each six feet in diameter, will stop. (There's no clockface on the back of the tower, above Norway Plain Cemetery. "To those people, time means nothing," Fogg says.)

Up in the tower, the clock's ticking is reassuring. It's authoritative. It imposes order. You'd never think of doubting it, as you might the measly digital numbers blinking at us from so many household appliances. It's almost enough to make you a believer in the "clockwork universe," the cosmos as a perfect machine.

"It keeps very, very good time," Fogg notes. You can set your watch by it--and all three faces are in sync: "When the clock strikes, I'll look at my watch." He wears a big wristwatch: "This is an atomic watch. It's right to the second. My wife told me I ought to have this because that way I keep the clock right. If I'm home and I hear it strike, I'll look at my watch and say, 'Yep, it's right on.'"