The "Old Courthouse Clock", now the object of a major restoration effort, was "born" on August 6th, 1889, at the Seth Thomas Company factory in Thomaston, Connecticut. The Umatilla County Courthouse Clock Restoration Committee has worked diligently to restore the clock and to house it in a new clock tower on the northwest corner of Courthouse Block in Pendleton. They decided to have the old clock in fine running condition and atop its new tower in time to properly celebrate its 100th birthday in the fall of 1989.

When the 1888 Umatilla County Courthouse was torn down in 1954 to make way for the present building, the 4-faced clock was salvaged by a crane from its fancy French tower. The County donated the clock to the City of Pendleton, if they would install the old timepiece in a tower to be built atop City Hall. For whatever reasons, no doubt financial in nature, the City never made the necessary modifications to City Hall to accommodate the clock. So it sat in a warehouse at the City Shops, for nearly thirty years.

Roy Thurman, an employee of the County Road Department, had been keeping an eye on the clock all this time, having helped take it down from the old Courthouse. Seeing that it was being vandalized, especially the bell, and worried that it might just end up in the dump during some house-cleaning project, Roy "rescued" it once again. This time it came back to County property, finding a new home in the Road Department shops where Roy could make sure it was safe. With his retirement not too many years away, Roy approached the County Commissioners in early 1987, and the East Oregonian ran a news feature about the clock on the 31st of January. Roy told one and all that "I’d like to see it restored before I retire because when I’m gone some scrap dealer will probably get it." He hoped that the Commissioners would agree with him that the old clock was worthy of restoration. They did, and they proceeded to form a Clock Restoration Committee to oversee restoration and re-housing of the clock. This group has been in action since May 28th, 1987.

So why is this old clock so important? Well, it is a part of Umatilla County’s heritage, the last major remnant of a beautiful old courthouse that symbolized the growth and prosperity of the 1880’s. Also, it is a living example of the still workable technology of a past era, now long ago eclipsed by electronics and today’s "digital computer age." Truly it is a special cultural symbol selected by our grandparents to pass on to us, and which we can now share with our children and grandchildren and pass on to theirs.

The story of the old courthouse and clock is, as one would expect, colorful and interesting. However, since this is the story of the clock, not the courthouse, we will only digress a bit to relate some pertinent facts. Umatilla County’s first "golden era" began appropriately, in 1862, with a Gold Rush to the newly-discovered mines of Baker County and the Boise Basin in Idaho. As with most gold rushes, the intense activity lasted for only a few years, and with its demise, the foundling County entered on a phase of quiet, but steady agricultural growth based on raising horses, cattle and sheep. Then in the mid-1870’s, it was discovered that wheat, the staff of life, could be grown on the dry, rolling plains of the county, and quite successfully at that. Then too, there were plans for a northern transcontinental railroad, including one route that would pass right through the county, following the general route of the Oregon Trail. These and other factors added together to create a "land rush" into the northern and eastern parts of the county that reminded one of Oklahoma. Within a few short years, much of this rich wheat-growing district was homesteaded. At the same time, the sheep industry was rapidly expanding in the mountains and dry rangelands. When the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company arrived in 1881, the county boomed: its second "golden era," this time based on grain and wool.

Pendleton, the new county seat, centrally-located, and astride the new railroad, boomed as well, becoming the trade and service center for Umatilla County. With all this growth in population and economic activity, County government soon outgrew the little, two-story frame courthouse built in 1869 in the square in downtown Pendleton. So, in February 1888, the County Judge T.J. Lucy, and Commissioners Clark Walters and John Luhrs decided to build a new courthouse and jail. They held a design competition for the new building, and devised a unique scheme of financing its estimated cost of $70,000. The Court decided to sell the courthouse block, lucratively located in the midst of the downtown commercial district, and construct the new courthouse on a former school site four blocks to the east. You see, the taxpayers of Umatilla County were mainly young farmers and businessmen just getting started and therefore not willing or able to pay for the much-needed new building. So these were the circumstances surrounding construction of the 1888 Courthouse, which included a clock.

No doubt feeling that this raw, new corner of the Western world, was in desperate need of some real, civilizing culture, Dr. Fred W. Vincent, a prominent County physician, lobbied the County Court long and hard to include a clock and clock tower in the plans for the "new" county courthouse. In later interviews he claimed inspiration for this idea from a clock tower at the University of Michigan campus. Accordingly, architect George W. Babcock of Walla Walla, included a central clock tower and three smaller surrounding towers in his ornate and competition winning design. The architecture was highest Victorian in the elegant style of the French 2nd Empire. A photo of the courthouse under construction clearly shows the high, steep Mansard roof atop the tower, and the arched dormers with their big black "eyes", the future homes of the four faces of the Seth Thomas clock.

The clockworks were to be housed just below, in a large square room lighted by four pairs of tall windows. Louvers above the clock faces would let the sound of the bell carry out wide and far to help keep the citizenry on time. A lacy wrought iron fence and tall flagpole crowned the tower.

The courthouse construction began in July of 1888, under the direction of contractor E.R. Parks of Pendleton, and with the hands of a team of French masons who stayed to become part of the community. In April, 1889, the County ordered a clock from the Seth Thomas office in San Francisco. It was to be a model #17 tower clock, developed by A.S. Hotchkiss, a Seth Thomas design engineer. The clock would have four dials and a bell that was to be rung to mark the hour. The faces were 6 feet in diameters consisting of a large sheet of zinc-backed glass, with gilded numerals and a hole bored in the middle for the gilded, cedar hands. The faces were lighted from behind at night. The bases of all the numerals pointed toward the center, so the hours from 4 to 8 were actually read upside down. Another curiosity is that the numeral 4 was shown as four I’s instead of today’s normal use of a I and a V. This was for visual, aesthetic balance with the VIII on the other side of the dial.

 

SETH THOMAS TOWER CLOCKS SECTIONAL GLASS DIALS

The openings for design illustrated above should be made in the multiple of six inches. The frame, numerals and minute marks are made of iron or bronze. The dial is divided into sections, which are rebated in the back to received the glass. The glass is held in place with brass clamps. The joints of the frame arc fastened together with iron bolts and filled with lead, making the dial, when installed, absolutely watertight.

The clock mechanism itself consisted of a cast-iron, brass and machined steel "engine" that was situated one-story below the dials. A drive shaft extended up to a set of gears atop a small derrick-like frame. Smaller shafts extended out from the gears through the hole in the middle of each face to drive the minute and hour hands.

On page 30 of the 1890 Seth Thomas catalogue, "THE CLOCK IN - Court House, Pendleton, Oregon" was included in the list of the company’s varied clock installations around the nation, and indeed the world. Other Seth Thomas clocks, but different models, were installed in the clock towers of nearby Baker City Hall and Baker County Courthouse, as well as the Wasco County Courthouse at The Dalles.

The bell Seth Thomas provided weighs 1000 lbs (half a ton) and was cast by the McShane Bell Foundry in Baltimore, Maryland, being charged out in June, 1889. The bell was rung mechanically, powered by 1200 pounds of weights dangling at the end of 70 feet of cable. The weights and cable that ran the time-keeping mechanism were of much more modest dimensions, weighing only 170 lbs. The clock was designed to be wound twice a week, a procedure that took about ten minutes. The drums for the bell and timing cable were part of the clock engine, and from them the weights hung down in a shaft through the middle of the courthouse.

The fabrication of the clock in Thomaston, Connecticut, was completed on August 6th, 1889, as engraved on a brass plate on the clock. The company’s records indicate it was shipped out by rail on August 13th, to a W. Wilkinson, arriving on the Northern Pacific Railroad. William Wilkinson was a watch and clock maker and repairer with a shop on Main Street in Pendleton. The clock cost $884.10, roughly 1% the total cost of the new courthouse, which when furnished, ended up costing nearly $100,000. The original "1 % for art" program!

There seems to have been some controversy about financing the purchase of the clock, as noted in a poem entitled "The County Clock," which appeared in the July 16th, 1891, issue of the Pendleton Tribune. The author of the poem, which appears in its entirety as an appendix to this history, implies that certain Pendleton citizens had agreed to help pay for the clock. However, after it was purchased and installed, a written agreement that set out these arrangements came up missing. In the end the taxpayers bore the full cost, and left the author wondering "But what’s its use to farmers having it up there?" He concluded "Yet oft they think of the big clock, of pledges made and broke, which on the farmers no benefit did the taxes yoke." Hopefully, further research can be conducted to enlighten we moderns on this curious episode.

The clock apparently functioned well. However, it was not without tribulations. The Seth Thomas records show that two new dials were shipped out on November 17, 1897. Evidently the great fire that consumed the neighboring Byers Mill that year also blew out two of the clock faces. The new dials were sturdier affairs, with cast-iron frames to hold and support milk-glass panels. The cast-iron frames fit together in a sort of puzzle to form two rings with the numerals, in Roman type, extending between. Then, some fifty years later, another fire at the rebuilt mill threatened the old courthouse, and this time blew out three of the faces. This time they were replaced with much inferior plywood versions, but at least one cast-iron and glass dial remained to provide a pattern for modern reconstruction of the other three. Toward its later days, the clock evidently developed a mind of its own with regard to what time it actually was. Reliable witnesses recall that each face told a slightly different time, a fact put to good use as an alibi for tardy jurors.

But the greatest threat to the 1888 Courthouse and its clock proved not to be the great and fiery accidents next door, but the march of "progress." The 1950’s brought new prosperity to Umatilla County, and with that prosperity came a growth in government as well. New county office facilities were needed, as was a sanitary, modern jail. A new courthouse had been proposed and even designed as early as 1938, and levies had been approved in 1945 and 1948, so by the 50’s the needs had reached a critical point. In that era of "out with the old, in with the new", it was decided to rebuild right on the site of the old courthouse, in spite of suggestions to retain the old building as an "Eastern Oregon State Museum". Public opinion seems to have been divided, but apparently a majority felt that the old should be removed. And so it was. In 1953, the Building Committee officially decided on locating the new courthouse on the site of the old. They selected the firm of Roald, Schmeer, and Harrington of Portland, to design the new building. This firm had just finished the Harney and Hood River County courthouses, so were familiar with Eastern Oregon.

In November 1954, demolition of the 1888 Courthouse began. At the suggestion of Ray Gilham, the building committee decided to save the clock. On the 17th, the old clock was carefully removed from the tower by crane. Lee Drake, who had been the caretaker of the clock since restoring it following the Byers Mill incident, supervised the whole process and was pleased that nothing was damaged. Through the efforts of Judge James Sturgis, a new home was found for the clock, or so it was thought at the time.

It was reported that the City of Pendleton had accepted the clock and would install it atop City Hall the following year. Since some construction would be necessary, it would be stored in the meantime.

Razing of the solid brick walls continued, and soon the site was ready for construction of the current Umatilla County Courthouse, which was completed in 1955. Meanwhile, the clock sat in storage, awaiting its new home. It sat there a long time. It now has found that new home at last, to again serve the community of Umatilla County, an operating artifact of our rich and lively history.

Steve Randolph, Secretary
Umatilla County Courthouse Clock Restoration Committee
30 October 1987 (revised 1 September 1989)

It is reported that clocks mounted in towers and public buildings were among the very first mechanical clocks ever built. The first authenticated clock in the modern sense, was built in 1360 by Henry de Vick for King Charles V of France. This was definitely a tower clock, and is now mounted in the Palais de Justice in Paris. Many early clocks had no faces, but only rang out the hours on bells, so one can see a close connection between bell towers and tower clocks. In 1685, the pendulum was introduced, vastly improving accuracy, and in 1851, an improved escapement was invented by E.B. Denison and put into general use in tower clocks. This again improved timekeeping. From 1400 until the early 20th century, tower clocks became increasingly popular, until most communities possessed at least one such clock, often called "the town clock" and generally located in church steeples or town halls.

The first recorded account of a tower clock installation in the United States was in the church ("Meeting House") in Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1704. By 1750, only a few tower clocks existed, in Newbury, Massachusetts, New Haven and Norwich, Connecticut, and at the Dutch Reformed Church in Schenectedy, New York. By the mid-1800’s American companies, among them Seth Thomas, were manufacturing tower clocks, and during the Victorian era they became very popular in America. In our region, several tower clock installations were made around the turn-of-the-century, including Baker City Hall, Whitman College, and the Morrow County Courthouse.

The cutaway drawing of a typical tower clock installation was provided by the Seth Thomas Company. This shows the clock "engine" sitting one floor below the faces, with the bell mounted above in a room with louvered openings to let the sound out. The weights are suspended on pulleys and run down the inside of the tower. They drive the timing and bell-striking mechanisms in the clock engine. The engine, in turn, transmits this power to a central gear cluster that drives the motion gears which make the hands on the faces go around and to the hammer which strikes the hours on the bell. A drawing is also provided of the Model 17 clock engine. It was noted that a good tower clock should be accurate to within 5 to 6 seconds per week, at least when new!

Source of information above and for more detailed explanations of clocks in general and tower clocks in particular: "Time and Timekeepers", by Willis I. Milham, 1923, McMillan & Co., New York, reprinted in 1975 by Michael W. Daggett, Portland, Oregon.

No. 17, 8 Day, Strike. Width, 53 inches; Depth, 39 inches; Height, 65 inches. Pendulum, 8 feet ; Pendulum, Ball, 200 lbs.
Made also with 14 foot Pendulum and 300 lb. Ball. For one Dial up to 11 feet, or four Dials at 9 feet or less. For Bell up to 3.500 lbs. Weighs, boxed, about 2,800 lbs. Drawing of clock engine.

The name ‘‘Seth Thomas" is one of the most—respected by clock collectors around the world. Seth Thomas founded a clock-manufacturing company in Plymouth Hollow, Connecticut, that is representative of the best of American industry. Design, engineering and craftsmanship were superb, and the company was also known for its generous assistance with the installation and timing of its large public clocks. But large clocks were only part of the Seth Thomas line, which ranged from pocket watches, through mantle clocks, to "grandfather" and ship clocks, and also included fancy marble and brass designs. Tower clocks were introduced by the company about 1869, and were sold around the world. The Model 17 clock purchased by the Umatilla County Court in 1889 was one of several models of tower clocks then in production.

Seth Thomas was born 19 August 1785 in Woolcott, Connecticut. From a family of small businessmen and farmers, he inherited the honest, hard-working demeanor typical of New England. After serving apprenticeship as a carpenter, he became involved in clock making in 1807, at age 22. In 1813, he bought his own clock factory, and founded his own company, which in 1853 became the Seth Thomas Clock Company, a joint stock corporation. He first manufactured clocks with brass movements., At a bout this time spring driven clocks were also introduced.

In January 1859, at the age of 73, Seth Thomas died, but his son became President of the Company, and the family remained in leadership roles until 1932. This represented a family company history of 119 years. In 1931, the Company became a division of General Time Instruments Corporation, and in 1970, General Time became a division of Talley Industries. In 1982, the plant at Thomaston, Connecticut, was closed, and the operations were moved to Georgia. Thomaston was the old Plymouth Hollow, which the townspeople renamed in 1865 in honor of the marl who had made their town the center of a world-renowned industry. The Umatilla County Court ordered a Model #17 tower clock from the Seth Thomas Company in April of 1889, through the San Francisco office of the company. According to a silver plate on the side of the clock, it was completed at Thomaston on the 6th of August 1889. The name A.S. Hotchkiss, which is also shown on the plate and on the timing dial, refers to the company’s design engineer, responsible for all the tower clockwork designs. The purchase price at that time was $884.10. Today, according to knowledgeable sources, the clock, even before it was restored, is worth about $70,000. That’s quite a rate of return on the investment!

Source: "Seth Thomas Clock & Movements: A Guide to Identification and Prices", by Tran Duy Ly, Arlington Book Company, 1985.