GREENFIELD — No need for alarm. The county’s historic bell tower clock will soon get a hand — actually, eight.
Passers-by might have noticed of late the missing hands on two sides of the Hancock County Courthouse clock. That’s because one of the hands stopped working about a month ago. It got out of balance and spun around to the bottom of the clock, said commissioner Brad Armstrong.
Crews plan to replace clock hands on each side of the tower with eight new and more durable aluminum hands, Armstrong said. The Hancock County Commissioners earlier in February approved to pay $2,960 for Smith’s Bell and Clock Service to replace the hands and motor on the 122-year-old clock.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryArmstrong said to his knowledge, the clock hands being replaced are original to the building, which opened in 1898.
“It’s just a little bit maintenance when you’ve got an almost 130-year-old clock,” he said with a laugh.
J.J. Smith, owner of Camby-based Smith’s Bell and Clock Service, which regularly services the Hancock County Courthouse clock, said the old hands were wooden and rotten. His company will custom make new “properly balanced” clock hands out of aluminum to match the style of the historic E. Howard clock, Smith said. Balance is important for clocks, he added.
Many clocks Smith services in the state that are approaching 100 years or more have needed repairs, especially to replace wooden clock hands that have worn.
Smith said he won’t have to go up in a crane to fix the clock faces; the work can be completed inside the tower. He said they’ll take out the center section of each clock dial and install the new custom-made hands. Work should be completed at some point next week, Smith said.
The company will also replace the electric motor with a new one, which operates the antique clock. Before electric motors, Smith said someone would have to go up in the tower and crank the clock about once a week.
The county commissioners in 1897 purchased a “fine” $2,000 E. Howard clock from R.R. Ellis, a jeweler in Greenfield, to place in the courthouse bell tower, according to “History of Hancock County, Indiana: Its People, Industries and Institutions” by George J. Richman.
The courthouse is the county’s fourth since 1829. The limestone building, designed with a mixture of Gothic and Romanesque architecture, took about two years to build and cost $242,600.
County officers took possession of the courthouse on Jan. 1, 1898. When the cornerstone of the courthouse was placed on Sept. 22, 1896, it spurred “one of the greatest ceremonial events in the history of the county,” Richman wrote. Townspeople gathered for a mile-long parade in celebration.
Richman described the courthouse as a “magnificent structure” with “handsomely and artistically decorated” offices and halls.
“There seems to be a consensus of opinion among men who visit the city of Greenfield,” Richman wrote, “that Hancock County has one of the most beautiful and most artistically designed courthouses in the state.”
