Preserving the McClintock Clock
By Lauren Stepp
Downtown Hendersonville looks much different than it did a century ago. It sounds different, too. Nowadays, you don’t hear bovines mooing in the jockey lot, orchestra music spewing from phonographs or the village blacksmith hammering molten metal. You do, however, hear the historic O.B. McClintock clock.
Photo courtesy of Henderson County Genealogical & Historical Society
An auditory landmark, the timepiece has been chiming since March 11, 1927, when it was affixed to the Citizens National Bank on the corner of Fourth Avenue East and Main Street.
According to an article published in the Times-News on the day of installation, the clock was designed by architect Erle Stillwell and manufactured by the O.B. McClintock Co. of Minneapolis using bronze, copper and art glass dials. E.W. Ewbank, president of the Citizens National Bank, purchased the timepiece “at large expense for the convenience of the public.”
For practical reasons, the sentinel quickly became a “reference point,” says Richard Wilson, a volunteer with the Henderson County Genealogical & Historical Society. “In the pre-digital days, the clock [was] looked at for time.”
Townsfolk also listened for its “rich, musical chimes.” As noted in the book Kermit Edney Remembers Where Fitz Left Off, the clock had “four faces and chimed on the quarter hour. At a quarter past the hour, it would give the four-stroke Westminster peal. At half past the hour, the eight-stroke peal. At 45 minutes past the hour, what was called the 12-stroke reveille; and at each full hour, the 16-stroke Westminster chime, followed by the striking of the hour.”
This sound, says Wilson, “gave the town an identity.” But by the 1990s, the clock had fallen into disrepair. In 1993, the original chime tubes were removed and replaced with an electronic quartz chiming clock. Two of the faces kept time, while another fell 35 minutes behind. The fourth, facing Main Street’s 700 block, didn’t even have hands.
In the late aughts, when entrepreneur Mark Ray moved to the area and opened Dad’s Collectibles, he instantly took notice of the clock’s condition.
“The first thing I noticed during my first walk down Main Street was that there were no hands on the clock,” Ray remembers.
In 2013, he figured enough was enough. Ray worked with his partner, Nancy Pew, to raise funds to restore the timepiece to its former glory. Chapter 126 of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors handled the technical work.
Since then, the time setting of the chimes has been turned over to the Henderson County Genealogical & Historical Society. According to Ray, the clock chimes on the quarter hour without fail.
“Back in the 1920s and 1930s, it was a destination known by all,” says Ray. “Everyone met under the clock. With Hendersonville being a historic town, it only made sense for the historic clock to work.”
The historic McClintock clock is located on the corner of Fourth Avenue East and Main Street in downtown Hendersonville. To learn more, visit HCGHS.org or call the Henderson County Genealogical & Historical Society at 828.693.1531.
