KinSource - Tale of the Week - Chimes of St. Paul's City Clock Will Sound Again

KinSource

Minnesota Tales

The St. Paul Globe, March 8, 1903, p. 22

Chimes of St. Paul's City Clock Will Sound Again

The St. Paul city clock was, at the time of its installation, the largest of its kind in the United States; and at the same time it was the second largest on the American continent, the other being in Notre Dame Cathedral, Montreal. Both of these notable timepieces were made by the same man, Seth Thomas, the greatest clockmaker in the world.

For twenty-four years this faithful servitor of the people has tolled off the flight of time with unerring persistency. Every hour a hammer weighing 100 pounds is raised and lowered the requisite number of times by a gravity weight of 3,000 pounds, and it falls at each stroke upon one of the sweetest-toned bells in all the country. It was cast by Clinton H. McNeilly, of Troy, N. Y., and in its side is cast the name of the late Dr. David Day, of St. Paul, whose especial protege the clock was.

Dr. Day was one of the commission supervising the finishing of the court house, and for years after the installation of the clock, he used to climb up into the tower and watch the movements of the complicated mechanism for hours at a time. It was his great delight to watch the men wind it, and the man who came every Tuesday to regulate its workings. The weight of this bell is not known, but it is well remembered that the opening left by the builders through which to get it into the tower was found to be entirely too small, and it was necessary to tear out a great deal of the masonry that the great, resonant piece of metal might be put in place.

A weight of 4,000 pounds drives the mechanism of the clock, and two men are required to wind it. Two, also, are required to wind the striking apparatus and three to wind the chimes.

[A] constant contract is maintained by the joint courthouse and city hall commission with a watchmaker to keep the clock in repair and regulated. A man from this establishment visits the place every Tuesday and takes with him two of the janitors to do the winding.

The ponderous mechanism of the piece is indeed interesting to behold. One imagines that he is watching the movements of some exceedingly smooth-running steam engine, so immense are the parts. The pendulum, which has an escapement known as the gravity system, is one little used in these days. The ball weighs 500 pounds and it requires two seconds for it to swing one way.

The dial is twelve feet in diameter, the minute hand six feet in length and the hour hand five feet three inches. The figures on the dial are three feet in length, but looking at them from the ground one would imagine that should one of them fall off he could put it in his vest pocket with ease. Both hands are of wood and perfectly counter-balanced by iron bars driven into the base of the hands. These are hidden behind the dial, but at night when the dial is lighted up they can be faintly discerned by the shadow they cast.

The chime, relegated to innocuous desuetude about three years ago, was the only feature about the timepiece which caused unfavorable comment. It did its work well -- too well, especially in the "wee sma' hours" -- when strangers, unused to the clangor, desired to sleep in adjacent hotels.

Traveling men on the trains used to enliven the time by swapping stories about the St. Paul chimes. One man told of lying in bed at a nearby hotel. Listening to the sounds he mistook every quarter-hour stroke for the full hour -- the time seemed so long -- and very early he got up, dressed and went down to pay his bill and catch the train.

The chime is that intonation known as the "Westminster Abbey," the musical intervals being the same and arranged in thirds. Five bells are employed in this arrangement.

Three years have now passed since the chimes rang out their cheery, musical "All's well!" but lovers of the sounds have agitated so long and so well that the commission has decided that the lame excuse of a broken cable will serve no longer to keep the bells in silence.

Once in a while, to be more exact about once every year, during the sleety season, the dial of the clock facing toward the wind becomes covered with ice and the hands freeze to the dial; and this necessitates climbing up into the tower and removing a portion of the dial and chopping the ice away. Aside from this little or no trouble has ever been occasioned by St. Paul's clock for which was paid the sum of $12,000.