Synchronicity, magic, and talent helped Carrie the Clock come to life.
“What’s going on with that clock?” one member of The Woman’s Club of Accomack County asked fellow member Annemarie Edgar one early autumn day in 2022. The piece had been overlooked in a corner of the group’s Carrie Watson Clubhouse in Onley for as long as anyone could remember.
With her curiosity piqued, Edgar turned to local clock expert Mike Gould. He determined the tallcase clock, also called a longcase clock, dated from the 18th century. He could tell it was special, albeit in rough shape.
Glue had been used to patch everything together instead of what would have been original and period-accurate: dovetail and mortise and tenon joinery. It was surprising it was still standing—normally the glue would have disintegrated after so many years.
Conversations about restoring the clock tentatively began, but Gould, an engineer-turned-horologist, was already hooked. He would handle the works—the face and timekeeping mechanisms—but he needed the expertise of Tim Smith, a celebrated conservation and restoration expert, to restore the wooden case. Smith signed on and recruited his son, Levi, to spearhead the project.
“It was a total wreck and neglected for many years,” says Smith. “But once I saw the maker, we knew we had something.” The clock face had the maker’s signature: Philip Antrobus, a highly regarded British clockmaker, who constructed the piece in Manchester, England, in the 18th century.
Soon, the decision to greenlight the restoration was made, and fundraising began.
Mildred McClaren immediately stepped up. A member of the Woman’s Club, she was impressed to hear how old, rare, and valuable the piece was.
With funding secured, Smith began the meticulous process of research, determining what the wood case should look like, identifying what was missing, and the modifications that were necessary.
Edgar tracked the restoration in her journal. “Tim Smith sent a link to the clock in progress. In pieces!” she wrote in an entry last summer. “A giant jigsaw puzzle to be completed by
the masters.”
It was a methodical, 18-month restoration. Levi Smith made metal pieces by hand, with historical accuracy driving decisions on parts that had to be purchased.
Meanwhile, Gould worked on the timepiece. It was his most challenging project. Two specific parts were the troublemakers: a wheel in the movement had a broken tooth, which required replacing with a new, soldered one, and a handful of screws was entirely incorrect. Gould had to source replacements with the right profile.
He laid out the pieces on his dining table and worked on the project for four months full-time.
The piece—which had been officially named Carrie the Clock—made her debut last spring, now too important to be relegated to a corner in the Accomack Woman’s Club. She was moved to Shore History’s Ker Place in neighboring Onancock, a house museum that features a fine collection of 18th- and 19th-century antiques, where she’d be in the company of her peers.
Her stalwart fans gathered to celebrate. When she struck 6 o’clock and chimed, a wave of awe and deep satisfaction filled the room.
“All of us have an awareness of the synchronicity and almost magical way in which Carrie’s restoration came to be,” remarks Linda Nordstrom, Woman’s Club of Accomack president, whose mother, Mildred McClaren, was the project’s donor. “It’s as if all the pieces just fell into place and were meant to be.”
Carrie the Clock will stay at Ker Place for the Women’s Club’s 100th anniversary, until summer 2025. “The story behind the Woman’s Club clock really fascinated us,” notes Luke Kelly, collections manager at Ker Place. “To have an Eastern Shore connection made it all the more appealing.”
Though some questions are left unanswered—namely how Carrie the Clock came to the Eastern Shore—she can nobly carry on, beautifully restored and no longer forgotten in a corner.
This article originally appeared in our October 2024 issue.
