Researcher to give presentation July 19
(Peterboro, NY – July 2014) Have you ever driven by the Smithfield Community Center on Pleasant Valley Road in Peterboro, glanced up at the clock tower and wondered if the time was correct? Chances are it was! For 143 years a volunteer has climbed the tower at least once a week to wind the clock.
In 1992 the clock was in need of cleaning and repair. The Smithfield Community Association invited members of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, NAWCC, to remove the clock from the building and restore it to working order. In 1994 the restored clock was returned and things were back on time in Peterboro.
On Saturday July 19 at 7 p.m. Russ Oechsle of Homer, President of NAWCC National Tower Clock Chapter will present a program on “ The Peterboro, Stone and Marshall Clock,” at the Smithfield Community Center located at 5255 Pleasant Valley Road, Peterboro.
Oechsle has researched upstate New York clocks and clock makers for more than 35 years, including substantial work on the Cazenovia group of tower clock makers. He is co-author of the 2003 publication “An Empire in Time–Clocks and Clock Makers of Upstate New York.” He is a Star Fellow of the NAWCC, and a past Director of the American Clock and Watch Museum at Bristol, Conn.
Oechsle led the volunteer restoration effort of the 1871 (and 1935) Smithfield/Peterboro Stone & Marshall clock in conjunction with the Community Association’s efforts to restore the tower of the Community Center. He has led similar volunteer restoration efforts in Cazenovia (Methodist Church) and in Cortland, where the city clock was restored after a building fire. He will be reviewing the Community Center clock restoration effort and covering the history of the extant clock and the men who made it.
For 143 years only the clock winders and repairmen have seen the interior of the tower and the clock. This is an opportunity to see the clock (through power point pictures) and learn about its history. Where was it manufactured? Why are there boxes of rocks in the corners of the tower? When the clockworks fell into disrepair in the 1930’s where was a replacement found? When and where was the bell made? Are there other similar clocks in Madison County?
Come to the program on to learn the answers. The program will start right on “time.”
For further information, call 684-9022.