Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for Port Townsend from the courthouse clock tower … until, one day, it stops.
Some city residents noted the …
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Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for Port Townsend from the courthouse clock tower … until, one day, it stops.
Some city residents noted the absence of the familiar chime coming from the top of the Jefferson County Courthouse, which was confirmed by county staff.
“The bell has been disabled because of a broken gear,” said Shawn Frederick, the county’s director of central services. The precautionary measure “was necessary to prevent the possibility of further damage to the bell mechanism and the clock as a whole.”
County Administrator Mark McCauley stressed that “the clock is working. However, the mechanism that causes the bell to ring has a broken part that needs to be fabricated.”
McCauley added, “The clock is about 127 years old, so things like this are going to happen.”
There is a lot to the timepiece, which runs like a cuckoo clock. Its 250-pound weights drop slowly from the tower to the basement, enclosed in a cedar shaft.
Over the years, the bell and clock have needed a number of fixes. The original hammer, made by Ironworks of Irondale, was replaced and manufactured locally by Jerry Pohl and Russell Jaqua, according to the nomination of the building for a place in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
“The striking area on the bell has worn down only slightly more than ¼ inch in all these years,” the nomination states.
In 1975, after almost 85 years of use, the clock was fully disassembled and refurbished to allow its continued operation.
McCauley said a different part broke about two years ago, which caused the bell to ring non-stop, 20 to 30 rings at a time.
The courthouse building was approved in 1890, and construction was completed in 1892.
Both the bell and the clock mechanism, built of solid brass, were constructed in 1891 by the E. Howard Watch & Clock Company of Boston, Massachusetts.
“Legend has it that the bell was pulled across the plains and the clock mechanism was shipped around the Horn. The bell was reportedly drawn into position by a white horse,” according to the nomination.
All romanticism aside, the bell — lighted in 1912 when electricity came to town — has served the town’s citizenry well. Among other things, the bell was used to summon firefighters.
Don’t expect the chimes to return right away. Frederick said repairs could take between two and three months.