Big Ed Town Clock

03/26/2026

A pancake breakfast this Saturday at the masonic lodge on Main Street:

Ionic Lodge (diagonally across from the firehouse) is hosting our semi-annual pancake breakfast on Saturday March 28 from 7:30 to ~10:00…

For the curious, a silent presentation will be run about “Famous Masons”, questions and discussions are welcome.

Additionally, tours to the Lodge room and to “Big Ed” (the 136 year old Town Clock) can be arranged.

Hope to see you all there,
Steve Gemeny
(Past Master &
Clock Keeper)

03/26/2026

Pancake breakfast this Saturday at the masonic lodge on Main Street:

Ionic Lodge (diagonally across from the firehouse) is hosting our semi-annual pancake breakfast on Saturday March 28 from 7:30 to ~10:00…

For the curious, a silent presentation will be run about “Famous Masons”, questions and discussions are welcome.

Additionally, tours to the Lodge room and to “Big Ed” (the 130+ year old Town Clock) can be arranged.

Hope to see you all there,
Steve Gemeny
(Past master &
Clock Keeper)

04/30/2025

Big Ed Town Clock is enjoying the spring weather…

10/17/2024

Happy days for Auras and global communications in unique parts of the Amateur Radio Bands… It’s Solar Max! (Unrelatied to aledged man-made climate change…)

In a teleconference with reporters on Tuesday, October 15, 2024, representatives from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), and the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel announced the Sun has reached its solar maximum period.The solar cycle is the natural cycle of the Sun as it transition...

02/04/2024

How does Big Ed know how many times to chime?

The “Striking Train” is the part of a clock that runs the chime. The “Going Train” keeps the time. The hour hand (of the going train) is linked to an odd shaped disk called the “Snail” in the strike train that determins the number of chimes.

Each hour, a few minutes before the hour, a bar called the “Rack” is released to slide onto the snail. On the hour, a spinning fan called “the Fly” is released to spin, it is using air resistance to control the time between each chime. With each turn of a gear driving the fly there is one chime and the rack is lifter one notch away from the snail. When the rack reaches the top of its travel the fly is stopped (but free wheels for a while longer as it runs out of momentum).

10/29/2023

‘Bout says it all…

12/25/2022

The cold night of December 23rd caused Big-Ed to call a time out around 4am on the 24th.

Cold temerpatures cause bushings and bearings to shrink, and oils to stuffen… these small changes introduce increased friction on all the moving parts of a 150+ year old mechanical clock… when things warm up a tiny bit, Big Ed will be ticking away as he always does…

Give him a few days of rest…

- The Clock Keepers Guild

07/14/2022

ANNOUNCEMENT: The Eline Family has been caring for the Towne Clock for over 130 years & 5 generations. I've been winding it for 30+ years. Unfortunately I need to step aside.

Fortunately, the gentlemen of the Masonic Lodge have agreed to step up and take over winding and maintenance. Special thanks to Steve Gemeny for enthusiastically taking on the new role of clock-keeper. His interest and passion for tower clocks is exactly what Big Ed needs.

I'm still going to fill in when needed but weekly care is now in the hands of Steve and his team.

Jeff Eline

07/04/2021

Happy 4th of July. And a big thank you to Scott Bowers for reminding me of a 4th of July 45 years ago when we (me, my dad, John Ermatinger & Scott Bowers) rang the clock for 30 minutes to celebrate the bicentennial. 🇺🇸🎇🎆💥

03/26/2021

The ninth saga to fix the broken Towne Clock 11 years ago. 😫

The nine month saga to fix Big Ed

03/20/2021

Big "THANK YOU" to Chris Warrington & Shaun Merrill for helping me work on Big Ed and get him running again.

10/30/2020

Clocks Back & Vote!