First Parish Church of Newbury clock in The Daily News of Newburyport
By Richard K. Lodge
Special to The Daily News
NEWBURY – When the First Parish Church steeple clock strikes 12 today, July 4, it will herald its 150th birthday.
Boston attorney Stephen W. Marston Jr. donated the clock – an E. Howard & Co. Model 2 – to the church on July 4, 1874. Over the last century and a half, it has kept more or less steady time on its four synchronized faces, towering above High Road between the Newburyport line and Newbury’s Upper Green.
According to a brass plaque affixed to the frame of the clock, Marston presented the timepiece to the church community on Independence Day, 1874. It’s likely the clock was given in honor of his father, Judge Stephen W. Marston, who died the previous year. Judge Marston was a member of the parish and, as noted in his obituary, “a prominent and respected citizen of this place” who represented Newburyport in the state Legislature and also served as Justice of the Police Court in Newburyport. Both Judge Marston and his son are buried in Newburyport’s Oak Hill Cemetery.
The 150-year-old clock is not the oldest historic fixture at the First Parish, which was founded in 1635, making it one of the oldest established churches in America. Its bell, which is sited on the floor above the clock – five flights of stairs from the ground – was cast in 1868 by the firm of Henry N. Hooper, an apprentice to silversmith and foundry owner Paul Revere.
Through the years many people have volunteered to wind and maintain the clock, including Jim Dennis, Jane Merrow and Laura Colby. Since at least 2019, Adam Kowal of Newburyport has been the First Parish clock keeper, and in the interest of full disclosure, over the past year, he has allowed me to learn the trade as his apprentice.
Once a week we climb four flights of stairs inside the wooden steeple and wind two cables that raise heavy counterweights to keep the clock running and the bell ringing. One of us – usually me – turns a crank exactly 100 times to raise the first counterweight which keeps an eight-foot-long pendulum swinging and the clock running. Kowal turns on a small electric motor to pull up a second counterweight that triggers the iron hammer to ring the church bell. Both the “time” and the “strike” counterweights must be wound every seven days, or the clock stops.
After winding the clock, we make minor adjustments if it’s running fast or slow, and Kowal records that information in a ledger. Periodically he also applies light oil to the brass gears and, as warranted on rare occasions, does some old-fashioned troubleshooting when the clock stops for no obvious reason.
E. Howard Co. of Boston made hundreds of tower clocks and thousands of wall and mantle clocks for homes and schools before it closed in the mid-1900s. In 1870 the company introduced the Model 2 tower clock with its stylish iron frame, starting a trend in design for other tower clock makers of the day. Notably, Central Congregational Church in Newburyport has an E. Howard Model 2 tower clock which was dedicated in June 1877, and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Newburyport has an E. Howard Model 1 tower clock.
Richard K. Lodge is a former Daily News editor who lives in Newburyport.
The article Time marches on for First Parish Church clock was published in The Daily News of Newburyport on July 4, 2024.
The text and photographs from the article are shown here with permission from the author Richard K. Lodge.