Elaborate renovations will be made at Lewiston City Hall

to display the faces

of an historic clock.
By Scott Taylor
Staff Writer

LEWISTON – A Bristol woman’s $25 donation to the city’s historic clock relocation effort isn’t the biggest the city has received.

The fact that she sent it is what matters, said Community Relations Manager Dot Perham-Whittier.

“She said she heard of what the city was trying to do and was impressed by the youth working on it,” Perham-Whittier said.

The Bristol woman, who didn’t want to be identified, said she’d grown up in Lewiston and remembered seeing the clock from her house. Those memories were enough to persuade her to send a $25 check.

City officials hope to have the 110-year-old E. Howard clock on display and working by next summer. The Lewiston Youth Advisory Council is leading the fund-raising effort, helping to raise the estimated $22,000 to complete the work. So far, they’ve raised $16,325.

The youth council worked with Great Falls TV to create a videotape about the clock and its history, and they’ve been showing that video in an effort to raise money.

“Each time they show the video, more donations come in,” Perham-Wittier said. “The response has been good so far.”

The youth council has presented the video to the Lewiston-Auburn Chamber of Commerce, the Optimists Club and the Lewiston City Council. Those efforts have netted $3,625 in donations. Last month, the L and A Fund agreed to donate $5,000 to the effort. The city matched that donation with $5,000.

“They have a ways to go, but it’s a really good start,” Perham-Wittier said.

The work will be elaborate. Crews will need to cut a hole in the floor of the landing between the second and third floors. They will have to buttress the landing to support the weight of the clock.

The clock itself will be displayed on the landing, encased in glass. The pendulum and winding mechanism will be in another glass case below in the City Hall’s Pine Street lobby.

A rod will connect the clockworks in City Hall to the clock faces in the tower two stories above. City Engineer Mike Paradis said the rod will run through the third-floor conference room.

Paradis is working with area building supply vendors for materials. So far, Steel Services, Deblois Electric, Blue Rock Industries, Pineland Lumber, Champion Glass and Floor Systems have all agreed to donate some items for the display case. Harriman Associates architects designed the plans for the project free of charge.

“I’m hoping that we can get city crews to do the actual work,” Paradis said. “That will help cut down on the labor costs.”

Balzer Family Clockworks of Freeport removed the clock in November 2001 for repairs and maintenance. They returned it to City Hall in June 2002.

The clock has sat in the entrance to the third-floor Community Development Department ever since. It’s too pretty to put back in the tower, out of sight from the public. But it’s been too expensive to install properly in the public view.

“It is important,” Perham-Wittier said. “The Youth Council has been very excited about it. It’s a true piece of history.”

The clock was built by Edward Howard, co-founder of the first watch manufacturing company in the United States, in about 1891.

staylor@sunjournal.com