乌鸦传媒

The 120-year journey of a historic street clock that originally stood in downtown Seattle is preparing for its final stop on 乌鸦传媒’s campus.

Known as the F.X. McRory Clock since being posted in 1992 outside the legendary Pioneer Square haunt owned by Mick McHugh, ‘65, the clock had a long history before that.

“There are only so many of them and I don't think there's been many since then,” says McHugh, who approached SU President Eduardo Peñalver about bringing the clock to campus on behalf of a group of alumni friends. “They’re beauties. There’s just nothing like it.”

The clock, which is in the process of being installed to its new home on campus, will have its official unveiling at a small dedication ceremony at 10:30 a.m., Monday, Oct. 27, in front of the Casey Building.

In taking possession of the clock, SU contracted with Artech, Incorporated of Tukwila to refurbish the stand. Master clock restorer George Pease of Kitsap County was hired to replace the inner workings and get the clock ticking again.

It’s no small feat, literally. The clock weighs 2,466 pounds, or almost 1.5 tons, and stands about 20 feet tall.

Manufactured in Seattle in 1905, the clock stood watch for many years in front of a jewelry store at the corner of First and Union. A photograph in the archive of Seattle’s Museum of History & Industry places it there circa 1920. This was a time when Seattle was dotted with street clocks—giving Seattle residents no excuse for being late—that often were fixtures outside of jewelry stores in a town that profited handsomely from the Alaska and Klondike gold rushes.

As street clocks fell out of favor—in the early 1950s they even drew the critical eye of city regulators for displaying the inaccurate time of day—the clock was installed at Third Avenue NW and Leary Way in Ballard. It then took a long slumber in the backyard of a Magnolia residence until 1989, when McHugh purchased it and paid for its first overhaul.

McHugh says the idea to purchase the clock came from two brothers he hired for the restaurant.

“At one point they said, ‘You should talk to our dad about this old clock we have rusting away in our backyard in Magnolia.’ And so I said, ‘I'd be happy to.’”

For a few years, while being restored, it lived with master clock restorer Jerry Martin in Kirkland before McHugh brought it back to Seattle and installed at King Street and Occidental Avenue in front of F.X. McRory’s where it stood until 2017.

McHugh says when he met with President Peñalver about the idea of SU taking possession of the clock over lunch he suggested SU could change the tagline on the clock from "Time to Dine" to something else, like "Time to Study."

"You could have a little fun with that slogan on there and change it around once in a while to keep everybody on their toes and keep it fresh," McHugh says.

"I think we should keep it the way it is,” McHugh recalls President Peñalver saying. “‘It's a Seattle landmark and we are Seattle's University.’”

At his shop near Poulsbo in Kitsap County, Pease noted the provenance of the clock is local. Almost.

Master clock restorer George Pease in his shop in Kitsap County.

In fact, the clock is one of about 100 street clocks manufactured by the Joseph Mayer & Brothers Co. and operated by Joseph Mayer, a German immigrant who arrived in Seattle at age 15. By 2014, only 15 of the 46 Mayer clocks in Seattle are known to exist, according to MOHAI.

The clock’s case was locally made, cast at a foundry located on the Ship Canal, according to Pease.

However, Mayer didn’t actually manufacture all the components of this generation of clocks.

For the inner workings of the SU clock Mayer appropriated the gear trains and pendulums from clock- and watch-maker E. Howard & Co. of Massachusetts.

Sometimes, instead of using the E. Howard parts as is, Mayer took to casting his own plates, adorned with the Mayer name and made with a unique shape, obscuring their E. Howard pedigree.

“And apparently E. Howard didn't know about it or was OK with it,” says Pease.

McHugh says when he had the clock refurbished in the late 1980s, the inner workings of the clock were gutted, meaning it has not run on the intricately engineered bits in many years. Instead, it uses an electric timepiece that runs accurately day and night. As part of his work on the SU clock, Pease installed a new electric timepiece, which will keep the hands spinning for decades.

At the base of the clock is a glass case, in which a “showpiece” had been installed prior to SU acquiring the clock. This is a movement, the term for the mechanism of a clock, from the Seth Thomas Clock Company of Connecticut, which Pease restored. It is non-functional and is purely for decoration.