Two Bells Three Towers and the Roxbury Town Clock-keeper

Anthony Liberatore explains the movement of each piece of the clock mechanism

Article and Photographs by Lorcan Otway

ROXBURY — I climbed the narrow wooden stairs to the bell tower in the Roxbury Methodist Church. I was trailing behind Anthony Liberatore, the clock-keeper. The clock is old school, run by clock work, not electricity. Two weights are drawn down by gravity, and as they pull on the mechanism, that energy is translated into many motions of gears and regulators. In 1895, when the town clock was installed in a one room schoolhouse in the center of town, the clock keeper had to pull on a rope, likely once a day, to hoist the weights up to begin their journey down, turning the gears and rocking the regulators so that the hands of the four clock faces, showed the time to the East, West, North and South, and the bell tolled out the hours of the day and night.

In 1939, the clock keeper took a step towards the modern world and added two electric motors. The motors do not run the clock at all. Rather, when the weights fall almost to the end of their path, the electric motors haul the weights back up, in essence, winding the clock. The clock mechanism sits on a cast iron base. Typical of machinery of this gentler age, it is not all right angles and squared. The legs are curved, the mix between brass and black iron reminds one of the world of Jules Verne. A shaft disappears into the complex of wooden beams and ceiling boards to connect to a complex of gears which turn four rods which extend through the tower to the clock's four faces where they attach to the clock faces' hands.

Well, one clock face's hands. The old hands, made of light wood over a hundred years ago, have stood up to wind, rain, snow and ice. But as the Bard said, "All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity." And so have passed most of the hands of this wonderful old clock. So, Anthony has found a metallurgical master to make the markers of the minutes in aluminum. Now, he must find the loan of a cherry picker to raise him to the roof to reattach the restored hands.  

Danny Underwood was the clock keeper before Anthony. He lovingly cared for the clock well into his nineties. Twenty years or so ago, when Anthony took over from Danny Underwood, he knew nothing about clocks. But, there is something special about Anthony Liberatore. For much of his life and presently,  he has been a firefighter. It has been my experience, when something needs to be done in a fire house, everyone steps up to do it or learns to do it, from cooking to the maintenance of equipment. Mr. Underwood, the clock keeper in Roxbury, wass getting on in years, and younger Anthony stepped up. Firefighters do.

Anthony Libertore now cleans and oils the clock. Not content to accept that the clock has problems, he studies clockwork books, and comes to solutions for this old clock on his own as well. The driving gears have sprocket wheels and chains which resemble bike chains. They had become loose over the decades. So, Anthony took a skateboard wheel, and made an adjustable tension-bar to hold the smooth wheel against the chain, so the tension can be regulated. Old attics collect dust, spider webs, and grime, but in this church tower sits a gleaming tribute to the care of a clock keeper.

The swing of a heavy bronze bell eventually weakens the clock tower, so a mechanism was added to strike the bell with a hammer. We change with the times but we keep the important aspects alive. These things keep us rooted in our past. Time passes and Anthony helps to mark the minutes and the hours. Days pass, and years, and decades. We mark those events which pass in time, and we remember. Or we should.

A bell rang for John Tierney. He was a young probie, a probationary firefighter in the Great Jones Street Firehouse which housed Engine 33, Ladder Company 9. He was now off duty and preparing to go home when the buzzing blare of a call blasted through the old fire house. There had never been a call like it, and John knew his duty.  He did not have to go but he knew he must. There wasn't a seat on the truck for him, so he sat on another fireman's lap as they roared downtown.

He went up in the tower, carrying heavy equipment as a stream of others flowed down towards safety, he climbed up into danger. An Irish American woman noticed his name badge and touched his arm and said, "God bless you, John Tierney." She was the last person alive to see John. John's father Sean, taught Irish to many of my friends. John died with Mike Boyle, the son of James Boyle, President of the Uniformed Firefighters Association (UFA). They were union men who went to the concert I gave with Trudy Callaghan for the British Mine Workers on strike. Ten men were lost from Great Jones, a company of 40. Ten out of the 343 members of the FDNY were from my neighborhood firehouse. Every year, the neighbors stand as the bell rings for them.

Anthony tells me with a note of sadness, but no recrimination, that the neighbors here have gotten out of the habit of coming to the firehouse for the September 11 memorials. COVID broke the habit, as it broke so much in the nation. I hope we remind each other to go to the firehouse, in whatever town in which you live. If your father, your sister, your child is a firefighter, thank them, just anytime. They are the best kind. They run to the danger, go up in homes, forests, towers for each of us. But, like that clock that marks the minutes and rings the hours in Roxbury, be the keeper of the years that pass, marking the firefighter's solemn holiday, and stand as bells ring on September 11th. Step up. Mark the passing of time and the continuation of the dedication of firefighters. Thank you Anthony for the little things and big things done by you and your kind.

Anthony Liberatore with an old and new clock hands

Clock-keeper Anthony Liberatore

Clockwork

The Roxbury Town Clock

The Tower Clock