A timely story

Local clock expert Steve Hohn has cleaned and fine-tuned a 108-year-old clock that could be worth as much as $50,000.

Hohn, who owns Downtown Lodi's House of Clocks, restored a clock built by famous clock craftsman Walter Durfee.

Durfee, a Rhode Island antique dealer-turned-clockmaker, built his Model No. 20 in 1900. One of those models, sold at a jewelry and clock shop in St. Louis, traveled across the country, ending up in Murphys. The owner's daughters asked House of Clocks if they could clean it, and sell the piece on consignment.

Eight and-a-half feet tall, Model No. 20 is carved out of walnut wood — though they were also made from oak — and features a glowering "devil's head" at the crown of the clock.

"I think of it as more of a gargoyle's head," Hohn said.

Along the sides and base of the clock's case are engraved images of grapevines. Above the area housing the chimes and pendulum is a hand-painted lunar calendar that keeps the owner apprised of the moon's current cycle.

The beveled glass in the case is made from Waterford crystal, and the chimes are American tubular bells, a design created and patented by Durfee himself. When the chimes sound, they play either "Chimes on eight bells" or the "Westminster Chime," the same tune that can be heard coming out of London's Big Ben.

"It's showing its age, just like the rest of us," said Marie Hohn, who, along with husband Joe started House of Clocks 38 years ago on Church Street.

Though the Model No. 20 has been sold to a private party at an undisclosed amount, the clock usually sells for around $49,500.

Steve Hohn has come across Durfee clocks before, but rarely gets the opportunity to have one in the store. It actually had to be taken apart and transported in six or seven pieces according to Steven Hohn, with some of the pieces so heavy that two people had to carry them.

"It's a treasure to come across something like that," said Sandy Hohn, Steve Hohn's sister-in-law, who also works in the shop. "We live in such a disposable society."

The whirring gears and hands of the clock silently do their job, keeping the time. It will be taken to its new home today, but Steven Hohn will not be without another challenge.

Waiting patiently next to the Durfee clock is a piece Steve Hohn estimates was built in the 1700s by a clock maker by the name of Whaley. Though it's much simpler in appearance, it's just as elegant and unraveling the mystery of its origins, to Steve Hohn, is as important as getting it running like clockwork again.

History of the grandfather clock

So how did the grandfather clock get its name? The style of clocks were originally referred to as tallcase clocks or hall clocks. These were timepieces that took up residence on the floor due to their large size.

Back in the late 1800s in North Yorkshire, England, there was a hotel called the George hotel. It was run by the Jenkins brothers, a pair of bachelors that owned a floor clock that kept better than normal time for an era in which clocks were known to keep less than perfect time.

When the first brother died, the clock started losing about 15 minutes a day. Clocksmiths tried to get it working properly again to no avail.

The second brother died at 90, at which point the clock stopped altogether.

The new manager of the hotel never had the clock repaired.

In 1875, Henry Work, an American songwriter was staying at the George. He was told the story of the clock and wrote a song called "Grandfather's Clock." The song became popular and the nickname stuck for the tallcase floor clocks.

'Grandfather's Clock'

By Henry Clay Work

My grandfather's clock was too tall for the shelf
So it stood ninety years on the floor
It was taller by half than the old man himself
But it weighed not a pennyweight more

It was bought on the morn on the day that he was born
It was always his treasure and pride
But it stopped, short, never to go again
When the old man died

Ninety years without slumbering
Tic toc tic toc
His life's seconds numbering
Tic toc tic toc
It stopped, short, never to go again
When the old man died

In watching its pendulum swing to and fro
Many hours he had spent when a boy
And through childhood and manhood, the clock seemed to know
And to share both his grief and his joy

For it struck 24 when he entered at the door
With a blooming and beautiful bride,
But it stopped, short, never to go again
When the old man died

(Chorus)

My grandfather said that of those he could hire
Not a servant so faithful he'd found,
For it kept perfect time and it had one desire
At the close of each day to be wound

At it kept to its place, not a frown upon its face
At its hands never hung by its side
But it stopped, short, never to go again
When the old man died

(Chorus)

It rang an alarm in the still of the night,
An alarm that for years had been dumb
And we knew that his spirit was pluming for flight
That his hour of departure had come

Still the clock kept the time
With a soft and muffled chime
As we silently stood by his side
But it stopped, short, never to go again
When the old man died

Source: TheClockDepot.com

Contact Business Editor Marc Lutz at marcl@lodinews.com.

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