Courthouse clock gets its new hands

GREENFIELD — Time seemed to fly by Friday morning as crews updated the county’s courthouse clock.

Smith’s Bell and Clock Service spent a few hours updating the inner workings of the Hancock County Courthouse tower clock. They replaced the old wooden clock hands on each side of the historic tower with eight custom-made aluminum hands. Workers also installed a new electric motor.

For the past few weeks, two sides of the 122-year-old clock had been missing the hour and minute hands after one of the mechanisms stopped working about a month ago. J.J. Smith, owner of the Camby-based clock service, made a template of the former hands to match the style of the late 19th century clock.

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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.

Each clock face has about a 6-foot center section that’s connected through a series of clips and ropes to the motor. Workers took out all four clips and pulled the center face inside of the tower and took off the old hands. They then connected the hands to the dial gears and slid on a counter weight, Smith said.

“To have that hand balanced is critical in tower clocks, or really in any clock for that matter,” Smith added.

After ensuring the hands were balanced and secure, the four-man crew synced the gears with the tower bell, Smith said, so it chimes on the hour. Each minute hand weighs 25 pounds, and the smaller hour hands weigh about 15 pounds, he said.

Hancock County Commissioner Brad Armstrong said that to his knowledge, the old clock hands are original to the building, which opened in 1898. The commissioners paid Smith’s Bell and Clock Service $2,960 for new hands and motor. The company services more than half of Indiana’s 92 county courthouses as well as dozens of courthouse clocks across the country, including Ohio, Illinois, Texas and Kansas, Smith said.

Before electric motors, Smith said someone would have to go up in the tower and crank the clock’s system of weights. Sometimes, he said, counties would send jail inmates up to wind up the clock.

When Daylight Saving Time begins Sunday, the courthouse clock is ready to go to spring forward, Smith said. The company previously installed a master clock in the courthouse to automatically switch for time changes and in case of power outages, Smith said. It’s attached to the clock’s antique timepiece.