Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-07-10
AN UNcANNY TOWN CLOCK.
Its Strange Behavior Before It Stopped
 Forever at Half Fast a.

Forever at Half Fast 8.
 We've got a town clock in our village that walked folks up moro than a little at different times during the past five years" said George May of Coal.on, Pa.
 That clock was put into the tower of the May building 25 years ago. It struck the hours regularly for nearly 20 years and then suddenly quit. striking. John Gordon, the village jack of all trades, had taken care of tho clock ever since it be- came n feature of the village, but he couldn't tinker the old public indicator of the flight of time so that 1t would again announce the hours as they passed. The clock ran all right, but it wouldn't strike.
 Now, our folks had got used to depend ing on hearing the clock strike, and when it became silent there was much regret in town, so much, in fact, that when two years ago tho Presbyterian society of our town went around with a paper soliciting subscriptions for the purchase of n town clock to bc put in the steeplc of their new church people gladly and willingly put down their names, and the clock was bought and put up.
 ''Thc church was across the squarc from the May building, and it was n glad sound when the new clock pealcd forth its an nounccmcnt one day that it was ready to keep the village posted on the hours. It was set going at la o'clock noon- Every body was rcjoicing over being able once moro to know just how things were going when, at half past one on the day the clock was started, they wcrc thrown into constcrnation by hearing the old clock in the May building, which hadn't made a sound for thrce years or morc, start in dc libcrately, and, 1t seemed dcfiantly, strike ?.
 ''It sounds ridiculous to say that tho old clock was actuatcd by vengcful feelings toward the town it had served for so many years because the town had forgotten it for q new and more vigorous timepiccc, but 1t is a fact, all the same, that 1t took to strik- ing at all hours of the day and night, sometimes immediately preccding the striking of its correct ncighbor in the church stccplc, sometimes immediately | after it, and sometimes at the same time. Then again, it would break out two or thrcc times an hour, striking all the way from ono stroke up to IS. Tho clangor | it kept up caused people to request the owner of the May building to cease having | tho old clock wound, but he declined t. interfere with it, and it kept on fooling | with the new clock and keeping folks busy looking at their watches to sec what time it really was until one night n year and q | half ago the church caught fire in somC | way and was burned to the ground, new | clock and all.
 "Thc church was one hour burning, and during that time the old clock across 'hC | squarc struck thrCc different times. | "It wasn't until along toward cvcninA the day after the fire that people began tC notice that the old clock hadn't strucl | once since its rival was destroyed. Tha amazed them, and their amazcment grew when the clock remained silent all tha night and the next day and did not strik' again for nearly a year and n half. l "John Gordon, who had wound the olC clock for n quarter of a century, lived witt his aged mother in the village. Along il the early part of May, at just one morn | ing, the clock aroused and astOnishcd cv Crybody again by giving one loud anC dolcful stroke. Soon aftcrward it wa learned that GorlOn's old mother had dict at exactly 6 o'clock that morning.
 At tho funeral of his mother GorloI became ill, and for the first time since tn clock was put in the May building othe hands than his had to wind tho capriciou timCpiccc. Gordon was sick two weeks but every one expected to sec him on tn streets again fin few days, when at hal past one evening the old clock tOllcd ou another single stroke.
 John Gordon died at just that hour
 "Thcn the owner of the clock dccidc' that it should never bc wound again When it ran down and stopped, its hand wcrc at half past <, and there they will rC main as long as they cling to tho face q the now silent old clock New Yor
 Sun.