It needs winding twice a week, if you can get to it and know how. And frankly, it’s not that easy. You’ve got to be in shape for this job. You might ask, Really? Certainly a clock, even in a tower, is electric by now, with a switch by the door and some gizmo to reset it if the power goes out. Nope. A charming weather vane on the roof indicates the Westport Library was established in 1884. Some years later, in 1918, the clock was installed. Ever since, it’s been someone’s job to climb up there—way up there—and wind it by hand.
That’s 106 years of hand-winding, all so the town can stay in sync as to the time of day. This story is not so much about the library, despite it being as appealing as any in the region. It’s about the person winding the clock, how it happens, and where.
Luckily, I was invited by my friend Michael Fergot to see it in person, way up behind the clockface, where the numbers are seen in reverse on a translucent face, just like in that action movie I can’t remember the name of. That’s where most of the works are, in the belfry, or perhaps I should say clock tower, since the bell is actually one level higher, above a hatch in the ceiling.
We met at the rear door before the library opened for the day. Fergot, a local yoga teacher, is also Westport’s current volunteer clock-tender. I followed him to an “Authorized Only” door toward the front of the building, facing the library lawn and Main Street beyond. If you’re a town familiar, you’ve seen the spot a thousand times, but from the outside. We entered a utility room with a short set of curving stairs, as nicely built as the rest of the library, despite being in a private area. Those steps lead to a very steep set of stairs you could just as well call a ladder.
Fergot makes this climb twice a week to wind the library’s clock, and to tend to other small maintenance duties and inspections. It was delightful to see, and even smell, a room of all unfinished and aged wood. A visit to seemingly bygone mechanics, still in action, and doing just fine. On the day I joined him, Fergot took extra time to explain how he does it, afterward writing a note or two on the paper pads on a makeshift table.
Cables, with heavy weights attached, run up and down a narrow vertical shaft along the wall from a space above through the floor below. Elsewhere in the works, thinner cables make many turns around capstans. All this mechanical business needs to stay clear. Nobody wants a bound-up works—it would mean having to lift the heavy weights to free them up.
While absorbing the uniqueness of the space, the 11 o’clock hour rang out, vibrating the room. Fergot had intentionally brought me at that time so I could experience the hour being struck. What an impressive collection of gears, gimbals, and well-oiled nuts and bolts in a somewhat compact space. And not one thing was virtual, artificial or computerized. From its own time, ingeniously installed and linked together so that anyone in the area can know something as simple as the time.
There is one newer looking gadget attached to the clockworks. Fergot said it works to stop the bell from ringing during very late evening hours, depending on how it’s set. As with everything else here in this room, the bell ringing override is mechanical, with cable and gears and other unseen fittings in a small nearby box. So it fits right in.
Who does one call if a significant issue arises with this complex century-old gizmo? Fergot told me there is still a remaining clockworks expert in Vermont who has helped, and wondered if he may be the end of that particular breed of specialists.
I pondered that while staring at a small, six-inch clockface mounted directly to the clockworks, with its nearby foot-long pendulum swinging steadily along. Fergot explained that the smaller clock keeps the time, sending the information up, out and over arms and linkages, transferring it to the face, maybe eight feet away, as seen from the outside. These two faces, the large one and the small one, should read the same time. If not, something needs adjustment. That’s as deep as I will try to delve into that bit of the workings. Anything more is best left to the professionals. We’ll have to hope that there will always be one, one who is also willing to climb the ladder.
Before Michael Fergot, Allan Beal made this regular volunteer climb for our community. And Rick Rockefeller held the position before passing it to Allan. Of all the people who have wound the Westport Library clock over 106 years, they are the only three I know to thank. Some may have been the librarians themselves, or the spouses of librarians, or friends of spouses of librarians. All needed to be fit and willing to climb. Because if the clock will not come to you, you must go to the clock.
This year marks the 140th anniversary of the Westport Library. Learn more at www.westportnylibrary.org.
