Gorham's clock should stay at church

Editor’s note: the following is an open letter to the Gorham Town Council

A few weeks ago, you, our Town Council, voted to make a substantial amount of funding available for the restoration of the town clock. I commend you and thank you for that vote. Most of the citizens of Gorham were probably unaware that the town even had a clock. That’s because for 138 years the town clock has graced the steeple of the First Parish Congregational Church.

For most of those years most citizens of Gorham have looked at the clock, set their watches by it (yes, until recently, it was accurate enough for that), and probably never knew that it belonged to the town. Of course the four faces of the clock do not belong to the town, but are in fact an integral part of the steeple of what was, for the first 100 years of town history, the town church and town meetinghouse. But behind those faces lies a priceless antique tower clock mechanism that was manufactured by the Howard Watch and Clock Company of Boston in 1868. It is a wonderful bundle of brass and steel gears and levers all mounted on a frame with ornate Queen Anne style legs. It was a mechanical marvel of its time and is now a rare and precious reminder of those times. It is also still a pretty good clock.

It was purchased and donated to the people of Gorham in 1868 for installation in the church steeple by one of our leading citizens and a leader of First Parish Church, Toppan Robie (father of future Maine Governor Frederick Robie), to be placed in the church steeple. Of course, in those years, the First Parish Meeting House, completed in 1798 (the last year of George Washington’s presidency) was also the town’s meetinghouse. Over half of the clock’s intricate mechanisms are dedicated to the tolling of the Paul Revere bell with which it shares the steeple. The clock was, in fact, donated as a companion to the bell, which had been purchased for the church some 46 years earlier by Robie. The church’s 1,228-pound Revere bell is one of only a handful of such bells remaining in working condition in the state of Maine. It too is one of this community’s treasures. For well over 100 years, the clock and the bell worked together to keep us all informed of the time. About 20 years ago, after repeated complaints from a neighbor tired of hearing the bell’s lovely tones, the town decreed that the chiming mechanism be disconnected.

Every year, in the spring, as the senior minister of First Parish Church, I have the privilege and the pleasure of hosting nearly all of Gorham’s third grade children who visit our church as part of their lessons on the history of our town. They visit Fort Hill and imagine the Indian wars, they visit the Baxter Museum, they visit the old graveyard, and then they come to the church and hear about what church was like 200 years ago. They sit in a pew that dates from around 1750 and was probably saved from the first church building inside the fort. They walk through the sanctuary steeped in history and see a chair left here by the first minister of the town. Then they hear the story of the Revere bell being raised to the top of the steeple by all of the people of Gorham pulling together on the rope. And finally, as the high point of their tour, a few of them get the chance to peel the bell and get lifted off their feet by its weight. It is a chance for our children to see and touch the history that is right here in their midst.

Last year, when the clock in the steeple ceased to function, as one of the “keepers” of the clock, I called on the Balzer Clock Company to come and take a look at it. The Balzers are among the world’s foremost tower clock specialists and restorers and just happen to be located here in Maine. Their assessment was that the clock should not have some limited repair, but should be fully reconditioned and restored. But at that same time, they made another very exciting suggestion. They felt that it was a waste that so few people ever got to actually see the antique clock mechanism, and they had a suggestion to change that, while keeping the clock in its historic setting. They recommended that the clock mechanism be moved from its current location in the top of the church steeple, to the front lobby of the church directly below. They committed to bearing the expense of creating and installing a drive shaft that would go all the way up the steeple to the clock faces while allowing the mechanism to be on display in the church vestibule in a glass case. They also recommended reconnecting the clock to its partner bell so that the hours would once again be tolled by our Revere bell in Gorham

Immediately, I could picture that wonderfully complex old clock mechanism becoming the highlight of our third grader’s tours as they watched the hour turn and saw the gears engaged and then heard the bell ring just as it did 150 years ago when very few people could afford the luxury of a watch. What a wonderful way to save our history, celebrate it and share it.

I commend the town council for its willingness to commit financial resources to restoring the town clock. You have shown the wisdom to preserve and honor our historic gifts. Unfortunately, I am told, there are some who feel that the clock should be removed from its historic home at First Parish and be moved to the new municipal center where it might be seen by a broader segment of the population of Gorham.

Certainly, being the minister at First Parish gives me a vested interest in this issue. Nonetheless, I think moving the clock would be a devastating mistake. It would violate the original terms and spirit of the gift. It would break the historic connection of the town clock with the Revere bell and with the town’s own original meetinghouse. Yes, First Parish is a church of a particular theological persuasion that is not shared by everyone in the community, but it remains inextricably linked historically to the town of Gorham in a unique way. First Parish’s history is very much Gorham’s history and the old meetinghouse is a historic treasure for both the church and the town.

On behalf of First Parish, I can assure the town council and all of the people of Gorham, that the church will make every effort to see to the placement and the security of the clock in the church’s entryway. We will make every effort to have the church open and available to all of Gorham’s residents during regular business hours each day. The old meetinghouse is an inspiring monument to the community’s history of faith and still a fine place to sit and meditate or pray or contemplate that history. We will welcome the chance to reconnect the clock’s mechanism for the tolling of the hours on the Revere bell (something we have long desired to see happen). We will continue to conduct tours for all of Gorham’s schoolchildren and make the clock a prominent part of those tours. We will continue to celebrate the intertwined history of this town and its historic church and the old partnership of a clock and a bell that has for 138 years touched our citizens every hour on the hour. Thank you for your thoughtful and kind consideration.

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