CLOCK DIAL
At least one time every day, somebody stops outside the West entrance of Robbins Hunter Museum to delight in the sight and sounds of Victoria Woodhull making an appearance from her clock tower home. They may be looking for her after a tour, or just happen to be passing by, but they always seem to leave having been captured by a moment of awe. Sharon Ryan is one of those admirers. However, last fall she was awed for another reason.
Sharon passes by the museum almost daily, and like all others, looks up to admire Victoria when she makes her hourly appearance. Yes, she is inspired by Victoria, but what tugs at her heart strings is the clock itself, located just above the wood carved woman, particularly the Seth Thomas dial. You see, Sharon is originally from Thomaston, CT, the factory town that produced Seth Thomas clocks and derived its name from their famous clockmaker. One of her ancestors even worked in the factory! So on this particular day, as she noticed the appearance on the dial starting to fade, she knew she had to do something. And we are ever grateful she did!
"As a Connecticut native, I'm proud of our history in clockmaking, as Western Connecticut was a global innovator in clockmaking through the 19th Century. Whenever I see an old clock I check to see if it was made by Seth Thomas. The Victoria Woodhull clock was becoming worn, with the name 'Seth Thomas' barely legible, and I wanted to restore this bit of Thomaston history in Granville."
Volunteers Jim Niedermeyer (l) and Ben Englefield (r) remove the dial from its attic home for repair.
The barely legible “Seth Thomas” as viewed from behind the dial.
Calls were made, quotes were given, and soon the dial was removed and on its way to a revered clock restoration company in Georgia, at no cost to the museum, thanks to Sharon! However, as happens sometimes when restoration projects are underway, things don’t always go as planned. After a couple of months the clock company called, and due to the intricacies of restoring the dial (which is made of glass), they decided to return it untouched. Thus, we were back to square one. Already in touch with our local Antiques Restoration guru because of other projects, he took one look at the dial and is anxious to get it back in its original tip top shape. Stay tuned for progress…and thank Sharon if you see her!
PORCH CEILING
It was noticeable from the upstairs exhibit space but didn’t cause too much alarm. I mean, at 178 years old, there are cracks and creaks in a few places around the house. We were watching the front porch ceiling and developing a plan for restoration. It, however, demanded to accelerate our plans. With an influx of spring rain leaking to a small area in the old plaster, it was inevitable that we would find an area of about 3’ x 4’ on our porch floor when it should have been on the ceiling.
April 2020
April 2020
May 2020
June 2020
At a time when the coronavirus kept our indoor visitors away, but our garden invited all outdoor visitors, this was as good a time as any to make things right. Board member Kevin Kerr began to work his magic with the help of Davis Construction, who donated the set up and take down of the scaffolding. It was a complex repair as it involved several trades: a plaster craftsman (hard to find these days), a construction crew for the carpentry work, and a roofing crew to repair the leak. To look at our porch ceiling today with the repairs and fresh paint, you don’t even have to imagine what Alfred Avery saw when he looked up there, too, back in 1842!