Time

By Heather Killen

Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com

"Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life."

-- William Faulkner

Clocks tell as much about people throughout time as they tell about time.

The display at the Macdonald Museum in Middleton is one of the most complete clock collections on the East Coast and draws thousands of visitors each year, according to Sherri Griffith, museum curator.

The late Norman Phinney, a former resident of Wilmot, amassed an impressive collection of clocks that was later sold to the province on the condition that it is to remain displayed in Middleton.

This exhibit offers a wide selection of period clocks, from Napoleon’s hat to grandfather and carriage clocks, and shows how faces of time have changed over time.

The driving mechanism that ticks away the minutes and hours also changes with the ages, from sand or water filling a vessel, to pendulums, quartz, and atomic clocks.

"The methods of time keeping reflect the dominant technology of the day," she said. "As the technology changes, so does the way we tell time."

The exhibit illustrates a full range of time keeping methods, from sundials and hourglasses, to mechanical clocks and quartz clocks.

She added that as much as clocks tell the time, they also preserve it. David Beckner, Bridgetown’s clockmaker, agreed that clocks tell as much about people’s history as they tell about time.

"You don’t actually own clocks, you just hold on to them for a while and then pass them on," he said. "Most of the clocks I repair were designed by people who are now dead. And most of the original owners of these clocks are dead. And these clocks will continue to exist long after I’m gone."

Even Beckner’s profession has become as rare as hen’s teeth. His 1989 clock making class at George Brown was the last of its kind to graduate before the course was discontinued.

And only a couple of his classmates are working in their chosen field.

"It’s like violin or piano making," he said. "There’s a built-in obsolescence to most modern clocks and watches. We’ve become a throwaway society that strives to keep the factories going."

He added that while he’ll probably never get rich repairing clocks, he finds that time disappears for him while he’s immersed in its inner workings.

"I don’t realize how much time has passed until my eyes start to burn and then I realize it’s the wee hours of the morning," he said. "It’s the challenge of bringing something back to life that hasn’t run in who knows how long."

To be a successful clockmaker, a person needs to have the ability to sit quietly for long periods of time and have enough patience to finish a job once it’s started.

"If you take the clock apart and don’t finish the job, then all you have are these useless pieces," he said.

Perhaps the most talked about clock in the county is Middleton’s Clepsydra, or the water clock beside town hall. While most people wouldn’t set their watches by its accuracy, the clock’s design wasn’t chosen for its reliability.

Sylvestor Atkinson, former mayor of Middleton, said that the idea of building a water clock in the Town of Middleton was rooted in the old adage that time is money.

"Kentville has the Pumpkin People, and Mahone Bay has the boat festival," he said. "Communities that are successful in attracting tourists seem to build their marketing around a central theme."

In the early 1990s, the town was looking for a central theme that could be used as a marketing tool to attract tourists to Middleton.

The plan was to build Middleton’s marketing campaign using what was already at hand. Atkinson said the unique clock collection at the museum was a drawing card that brought countless visitors to Middleton.

When the town received national acclaim for its efforts in water and energy conservation in 1992, it seemed timely to combine the themes of water and clocks to create a unique attraction for the town, he said.

And that’s when he hit upon the idea of the clepsydra.

"It was a one-of-a-kind something that could tie in clocks and water; and no one else has one," he said. "So why not have this as a theme?"

While the contraption may confound the modern imagination, water clocks were a revolutionary alternative to the old way of telling time by the sun.

"Sun dials were only useful during the day," he said. "The water clocks were the most reliable means of telling time until the pendulum was invented."

He added that after doing some research, he found that there are only about three other water clocks in North America, and none of them have the distinction of being town clocks.

Atkinson added that many cities have devised unique attractions that people travel to see. He hoped that the local business community would embrace the idea and each come up with a clever style, making the Town of Middleton even better known for its clock collection.

"There could be a barbershop style clock, and clocks outside the banks," he said.

While locally the idea never really seemed to catch on, other levels of government thought the idea was viable and agreed to finance the town’s clepsydra.

Not a local penny was spent in the design and manufacture of the clock, he said. In keeping with the Phinney clock collection, the water clock’s designer was Roger Phinney, Norman’s son.

The town’s water clock was unveiled on Atkinson’s last day as mayor. While modern society’s obsession with keeping precise track of time is a temporal one, it probably puts a damper on many people’s appreciation of the water clock.

"Impurities and temperature changes made them highly inaccurate," he said. "But in the past, people didn’t catch planes, trains, or were bothered with union contracts."

He added that until recently, people lived in response to the demands of their lives and jobs, not the clocks.

"If the sun shone, you went to work and didn’t come home until the job was done," he said. "Not everyone had a clock in those days, but then people didn’t measure what they did by the clock."