ST. GEORGE, Utah — The clock high atop the steeple of the St. George Tabernacle has long been shrouded in mystery.
How a clock of such intricacy found its way from the East Coast in the mid-1800s to a dusty, obscure frontier town in remote Utah baffles historians. Compounding the mystery were the several attempts in more recent years to modernize the clock — which altered some parts beyond recognition.
No records are known to exist that tell how the clock arrived in St. George. Over the years, speculations have been embellished to the point that some believed the clock came from England.
While the journey of the clock to St. George is a mystery, the manufacturer of the clock is not. The setting mechanism and the posted frame construction identify the clock maker as Ephraim Niles Byram, a prominent tower clock maker in Sag Harbor, Long Island, N.Y., who built clocks between 1830-58. His method of using a brass knob to engage the drive gear was unique among clock makers of the time.
According to Thom Hinckley, who researched the history of the clock and Ballard Gardner who spearheaded a recent effort to restore the clock to its working condition, the clock somehow arrived in St. George during the construction of the tabernacle. The clock and bell were hoisted and secured in the steeple in 1872, prior to the completion of the interior in 1876, according to Brother Gardner.
In its day, the tower clock was central to life in the pioneer communities of southwest Utah. People relied on the clock for the starting of Church meetings and the dividing of watering times between farmers and for other civic activities.
By the time its mechanism wore out in the 1940s, approximately 80 years after installation in 1872, the clock had ticked 1.25 billion times.
It's been 60 years since it last functioned. The better part of two generations has never heard the toll of the bell or consulted the clock for time.
Several attempts were made since the 1950s to fix the clock. Wires were strung and a motor attached, but the engineering was difficult and the mechanical problems were too severe to overcome. For years the clock was idle — more a perch for pigeons than anything — until one day more than five years ago when Brother Gardner was visiting St. George.
One look at the clock and he knew it needed to be restored to the instrument it once was.
"But it wasn't easy," said Brother Gardner, now retired after working as an engineer, machinist, inventor and marketer.
Don Gardner, with his mechanical ability, assisted his brother Ballard and Thom Hinckley. The three were paid for their technical expertise, but volunteered much of their research and production time, calling the project a labor of love.
They soon discovered that some parts of the weight-driven pendulum clock were missing. Others were severely worn. Still others were altered beyond repair.
"I could give you a hundred reasons why the clock didn't work," Brother Gardner said. "There was so much slop and play in the gears, we couldn't keep all the hands within five minutes of each other."
Byram clocks have been called "some of the finest clocks in the world," according to Scientific American. They vary in size and quality, but all, including the clock in the St. George Tabernacle, are based on four cast-iron pillars.
Secured to a sturdy platform, the clock is surrounded by hand-hewn timbers showing the weathering of more than 130 years of blistering heat in St. George.
The three technicians began renovation by dismantling the 700-pound clock and lowering the parts seven stories to the ground below. Some parts were packed in a box and lowered on a rope. Others were slung over a shoulder and carried through narrow passages and down steep ladders.
For the next three years, each part was meticulously machined or remade to its proper specification. The clock pieces were reassembled in Brother Gardner's shop in Orem, Utah, where each new part was tested, then retooled and retested until it fit perfectly.
Nothing happened simply. "It was a relentless process that required methodical analysis," added Brother Hinckley. "Regardless of theory, it had to work practically, if not, it had to be redone."
The crucial pieces were the escapement wheel and verge in the center of the mechanism that gives motion to the 14-foot pendulum and creates the tick-tock sound.
Years of use had worn the fine tips of the escapement wheel beyond repair. Rebuilding the escapement wheel and verge demanded much engineering and math to fashion exacting angles, shapes and spacing.
Compounding the problem was the installation of air conditioning duct work in the tabernacle that occupied the space necessary for the fall of the weights that powered the clock. With limited space, the clock would require manual rewinding every several days.
With Don Gardner's assistance, a new endless rewinding chain was designed by which the system would rewind itself while maintaining constant weight to power the clock.
After the three men spent hundreds of hours and made nearly 30 trips to the tabernacle, the clock was reassembled and started Jan. 14; it is one of three known Byram clocks still functioning. It is accurate to five seconds a week. The plan is to refine the accuracy to two seconds.
"It's a marvel that it works," he said one day as he bent over the clock, watching a flywheel-like governor spin like a fan during the striking of the 900-pound bell," he said.
"It's a mechanical marvel. Properly maintained, it'll last another hundred years or longer."
E-mail: shaun@desnews.com