Our Clocks

Early photos of our Church show no clocks at all. The Oakham Historical Museum has a photo of the first clock face being raised by ropes on the tower. They also tell who donated the first clock to the Town.

In 1938 during a hurricane, the Church tower blew down taking part of the roof of the building with it. The building was owned by the Town of Oakham at that time. The tower and roof were rebuilt we believe by Lowell Arms, a local contractor. The bell’s cast iron frame was welded and new steel cross beams were put in to hold the bell. The original clock we assume was not repairable. Four electrical clocks were purchased from Warren Telechron Co. in Ashland, Ma about 1940.

In 1954, ownership of the Church building and a small plot of land that it stood on was transferred to the Church people. The Town kept ownership of the clocks. As late as 1985, the Town had an appointed Keeper of the Clocks, Dr. Ray Crawford. that time, only one clock still kept time and all four needed repair.

In 1994, the Church was being painted and the contractor offered to the Church Trustees the option to rebuild the clock faces, letters and hands, and apply gold leaf to the letters and hands. As our budget did not have the money to do this and repair the clocks, a proposal was submitted to the Selectmen to see if the town could put any money toward repairing their clocks. They had no interest in spending any money to do so.

After some research, we found Telechron Co. had been sold to GE in the mid 40’s, but GE did not want the tower clock division. It was spun off to become Electric Time Co. and was still in business in Medfield, Ma. The Church Trustees removed the clocks from the inside of the tower and took them to Electric Time for a quote to repair. They were repairable, but said they could sell us four new ones for not much more money.

The Church Trustees decided new would be better, and we would own them. The funds to purchase the clocks was donated from proceeds from a Golf tournament held by the Church.

The new clocks were installed by the Church Trustees from inside the tower and the new hands installed through small doors in the clock face.