During the Summer of 1985 when I was 16 and inspired by old books in my parents library and by beautiful books made by family friend Carolee Campbell (The Ninja Press) in California, I took a course at The Center for Book Arts in New York in letterpress printing. This introductory course taught the basics of setting type and hand-printing it on a Vandercook letterpress. I printed some poems and other little keepsakes as part of the course. Afterwards, while sailing on Stockbridge Bowl in family friend, historian William L. Shirer’s boat with another friend, Barbara England, she said that she had just finished writing a poem, Hello Sun, for her grandchildren. Bill Shirer, calling out from the tiller said, “Luke, why don’t you print it.” And I did. I handset the type and printed it on a press at The Center for Book Arts. Then I sewed the one hundred copies with help from my mother on the kitchen table. I carried copies to bookstores in New York City and Massachusetts asking “would you sell this book?” Mostly, the stores said “no”. But, happily, a few stores said “yes”!

That was 25 years ago this August.

Thornwillow’s first book, Hello Sun by Barbara England

This August I am thrilled to announce that Vassar College has just mounted an exhibition of work curated by Ronald Patkus, Head of Special Collections, to celebrate Thornwillow’s 25th Anniversary. The exhibition which features all 32 books published by the press over these years will be up through December 2010. On October 9th, friends of the press are invited to a talk that I will be giving at 3 p.m. followed by a tour of the exhibit and a reception. My great hope is that you will be able to come to Vassar for this afternoon of celebration. Please see the invitation below and reply by September 30th to 845-437-5799 or derogers@vassar.edu if you will be able to attend.

YOU ARE INVITED… PLEASE REPLY IF YOU CAN ATTEND:

Checklist of the exhibit Ars Omnia Tuetur: 25 Years at Thornwillow Press

Here are some links to articles about the exhibition:

Poughkeepsie Journal “Private Printer is Vassar College Exhibit’s Focus”

Ars Omnia Tuetur: 25 Years of Fine Printing at Thornwillow Press

In addition to curating the exhibition, Ron Patkus has also written a history of the press and a bibliography describing all Thornwillow publications to date. The volume, due to come out this Fall also features remarks about the press and the place of the book in our modern world by celebrated bookmen and dear friends Daniel Jordan, Roger Stoddard, Richard Wendorf, and Ted Widmer.

Hoping that you will be able to visit the exhibition this Fall and may also be able to come to the event on October 9th.

Luke Ives Pontifell

When I started my internship in the archives at Thornwillow Press this Summer, I had no idea what I would be working with, but had hopes that I would come across at least a few interesting things. Well, to say the least, I did. I discovered numerous old books, manuscripts, letters, press proofs, type specimens, unusual objects and photographs. It was truly exciting to uncover, literally, so many curiosities that had been sitting in boxes for years.

While sorting through the vast accumulation of material, I stumbled upon a large cardboard folder; I opened it carefully and found inside a leaf of old handmade paper, printed letterpress with beautiful German type and ornamented with intricate portraits. I asked Luke Pontifell who had assembled the collection over the last 25 years what this enchanting piece of paper was. As we stood in a corner of the dimly lit work area, Luke glanced at the delicate page and said. “ah, yes… You’ve found it… our leaf of the Nuremberg Chronicle…” and left the room. Having never heard of the Nuremberg Chronicle, I was curious and determined to find out what it was.

The Nuremberg Chronicle leaf located in the Thornwillow Archives.

After doing some research, I found that it is an account of world history beginning with creation… And is one of the first books ever printed. Ever. And one of the first to incorporate illustration. It was written in Latin by Hartmann Schedel and translated into German by George Alt. Nuremberg’s leading artist during that time, Michael Wolgemut, created about 645 elaborate woodcuts for the Chronicle. His illustrations were sometimes hand-colored after they were printed. The woodcuts depict towns, kings, battles, and various historic figures. Anton Koberger, the godfather of Albrecht Dürer who apprenticed with Wolgemut at the time the woodblocks were being made, printed and published the Chronicle in Nuremberg in 1493. Like Thornwillow, Koberger had 24 presses.

A two-page woodcut from the Nuremberg Chronicle
(located at the Museen der Stadt Nürnberg)

At about the same time, Christopher Columbus stumbled upon America.

In studying the Thornwillow leaf, I noticed the type is pressed into the paper the way Thornwillow’s books are today, and hand-drawn red lines decorate each initial capital, as well as the margins and the woodcut illustrations… Put there hundreds of years ago by someone working in a place probably not all that unlike Thornwillow Press. I also noticed that in one print a man is portrayed holding a pair of glasses — similar to Luke Pontifell’s glasses.

Comparison between the man with glasses in
the Nuremberg Chronicle to Thornwillow’s Luke Ives Pontifell.

Plus ça change, c’est la même chose.

SARAH ROSSI is a Junior at Mount Saint Mary’s College working towards her BA in English Literature. This Summer Sarah has been working as an intern in Thornwillow’s archives.

This Summer a dedicated and talented team of interns tackled the burden of unpacking and shelving cartons of books that have been in storage since we moved our office from New York City to Newburgh, New York five years ago. Included among this collection, in addition to type specimens, books on design and examples of early printing, is a cocktail book collection that I have spent many years and much energy accumulating. Seeing the volumes after so long, gave me a warm, happy felling, like being reunited with old friends… and a powerful thirst. And given the unbearable heat and unctuous humidity we have been experiencing this August, a painful environmental moment that makes New York feel as though it lies just outside the gates hell, one recipe kept drawing me, like Mephistopheles, again and again: The Mint Julep.

All of the classics, The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), Old Waldorf Bar Days (1931), The Stork Club Bar Book (1946), and The Esquire Drink Book (1956), all have recipes. The Gentleman’s Companion (1946, one volume devoted to food, and one to drink) even highlights this particular cooling cup as the frontispiece illustration.

The recipes are all quite similar with one distinction that divides them into two schools: The Bruised School and the Un-Bruised School. Though both have their merits, I prefer the Bruised School as this is the one made familiar to me by my father as a child when spending summers in Massachusetts. He was taught the recipe by a genuine Southern Gentleman on one of his almost weekly trips to Winston Salem, North Carolina when working on advertising campaigns for R.J. Reynolds during the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. And, though my father was an archetypal New Yorker, the idea that this recipe has a direct connection, a single laying on of hands, only one degree of separation from the real South from which it was transplanted, makes it, for me, reek of authenticity and glow with the nostalgic childhood memories of watching my father harvest mint by the kitchen door in West Stockbridge.

The refreshing Mint Julep.

The recipe is simple:

Fill a tall glass (there are proper mint julep glasses where the mouth flares open at the top slightly… Do not use stemmed glasses, they wont perspire in the same way) or better yet a silver cup with crushed ice. The ice must be crushed or cracked. Don’t use cubes. My father often rolled the ice in a dish towel and hit it with a hammer on the back stoop.

Bruise a hefty gathering of mint leaves in a bowl with a spoon or in a mortar and pestle. Add a good amount of sugar to the bowl and a small amount of water and bruise some more to work it into a soft paste or syrup.

Pour about an inch and a half of the syrup over the ice into the cup.

Fill the rest of the space with bourbon (bonded bourbon like Old Grand Dad or Wild Turkey 101 proof works well… And there is certainly nothing wrong with Rebel Yell or Makers Mark)

Plunge a few nicely chosen sprigs of mint with small fresh leaves into the cup through the ice, so that the leaves press into your face when you drink and fill your nose with the wonderful aroma.

The Un-Bruised School dispenses with the mint and sugar syrup and just calls for a spoonful of sugar and the fresh sprigs of mint.

After the recipe in The Stork Club Bar Book (their recipe calls for a splash of cognac floated on top… And suggests that one might also enjoy a splash of Jamaican rum on top instead), the author, Lucius Beebe adds, “Officer, please back the patrol wagon nearer the curb; the step is too high for my mother” … And leaves it at that.

LUKE IVES PONTIFELL is the President and Publisher of Thornwillow Press, and hopes to find some refreshment this weekend.

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Thornwillow Press is a printer and publisher of handmade limited edition books, maker of engraved stationery,
invitations, announcements and custom leather book bindings. Click below to view some related work from Thornwillow.

]]> http://www.thornwillow.com/2010/08/refreshing-cups-by-luke-ives-pontifell/feed/ 0 http://www.thornwillow.com/2010/08/elle-decor-magazine-features-thornwillows-peacock-open-fan/ http://www.thornwillow.com/2010/08/elle-decor-magazine-features-thornwillows-peacock-open-fan/#comments Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:27:59 +0000 Thornwillow Press http://www.thornwillow.com/?p=2120

Elle Décor Magazine features Thornwillow’s Peacock Open Fan engraved stationery in their September 2010 edition.

ELLE Décor is produced as a stylish, fashion-savvy design publication for the consumer who knows what she wants. Editorial celebrates style without borders, news that matters and fashionable products that bring couture chic to every room.  The circulation is 520,595.

LONDON: In the madness of London life “the children’s party” takes pride of place in the pantheon of phenomenon. For this recipe, take forty to fifty children. Dress them up as Pirates or Princesses (complete with extravagant Crinolines). Jazz them up with invigorating entertainment: water cannons, which fire water balloons into the crowd, live reptiles or fire-eaters for example. Then feed them into a frenzy with sugary treats and a million additives. As a grand finale you might produce a piñata, arm the children with a giant wooden bat and get them to beat the life out of a cardboard sculpture stuffed to the brim with sweets.  It will suddenly split, pouring its contents onto the floor for the crazed children to gather and devour.

“Peaceful and reflective” birthday celebrations

I have painted a somewhat unsavoury picture of these parties. There are many upsides too of course. Each event is a magical couple of hours of imagination and fantasy. The children are in heaven and as a result the parents are happy too. The fun is harmless and if the children are on a sugar high they are also exhausted and will crash into bed soon enough.  Yet the thing that really raises my blood pressure is the going home present fandango. Fair enough that every invitee should bestow a present on the lucky birthday boy or girl but why do we have a tradition whereby each guest has to go home clutching some gift? The going home present puts a financial strain on the party parents, and all that usually is given is a bag of tat. Cheap plastic rubbish, which ends up strewn all over the car and eventually the house. More sweets, sticky skeletons, exploding fire crackers – the things in those offending bags are as endless as they are mundane. Ridding your home of the accumulated stuff can be a feat of emotional blackmail as your small child develops an attachment to the water pistol/pot of bubbles they have been given.

Children’s gifts can be heirlooms passed from generation to generation.

So here’s my solution – it may not be inexpensive but at least it is satisfying and worthwhile. Instead of the obligatory bag of plastic mulch, I give a book. I pick a fun children’s storybook, which reflects the theme of the party, and I give one to each child as they head their way home. My children did not understand why I did not collect and distribute a small mountain of non-biodegradable objects to their friends and they complained at first, but I stood resolute and firm in the face of opposition. I love giving those books. I know that they will be read and re-read, enjoyed and hopefully treasured. In years to come, said happy child, now an adult and possibly a parent may even give the book to their own offspring. Where will all those plastic bits and sweets be then I wonder? Where indeed?

From father to son, a treasured book amongst the Morris family.
Airplanes and Trucks and Trains… by George Zaffo.

Here are some suggestions of children’s books you might give at a party

“Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs” by Giles Andreae

“The Queen’s Knickers” by Nicholas Allan

“On A Tall, Tall Cliff” by Andrew Murray

“The Witches Children and the Queen” by Ursula Jones and Russell Ayto

“The Story of Ferdinand” by Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson

And some finely bound books from Thornwillow for a special occasion

Children’s classic stories beautifully bound by Thornwillow Press in Newburgh, New York.

FELICIA FENSTON MORRIS has packed away her barrister’s wig and now divides her time in London between writing, property development and playing games with three small boys.

Jan Tschichold (1902-1974), by his own words, “loyal and faithful servant of the written word,” was actually to that manor born. The son of a Leipzig, Germany journeyman sign painter he literally grew up amidst letterforms.

He reportedly recalls, his “deep satisfaction” when at 17 he saw by chance some English magazine pages set in Caslon type. As an early student of calligraphy, you would by rights expect him to have become a type designer, and though he does have fonts to his credit (the by-now classic Garamond-based Sabon being the most famous and Saskia from 1931 being an elegant and interesting italic), Tschichold’s reputation as a designer and typographer is based more on his uncontested precision with the universal details of communicating through the medium of type, with particular emphasis on the form and proportion of the book.

The Saskia (left) and Sabon (right) typefaces

His career illustrates a lifelong and almost stereotypical Germanic insistence on propriety, proportion, balance, legibility and—above all—the sacrosanct power and authority of the message as written, and—it may sound high-handed, but is true—the proper and non-arbitrary particulars and ethics of its conveyance. (Indeed: a collection of translations of some of his most salient writings is under the title, “The Form of the Book: Essays on the Morality of Good Design.”)

As a teacher, theoretician and advocate of Die Neue Typographie (the title of his historic tract from 1928), a fiery young Tschichold enthusiastically took up the banner of strict Modernist design after exposure to early Weimar Bauhaus exhibits. In it he effectively denounces the “decay”—the clutter and filigree—prevalent in common German design and typography at the time, promoting exclusive usage of sans serif (Grotesk) typefaces and asymmetrical layouts.

The Form Of The Book: Essays on the Morality of
Good Design and Die Neue Typographie by Jan Tschichold

His manifesto was a poke in the eye to the blackletter heirs of Gutenberg and such radicalism—particularly in the Munich university setting he promoted it from—made him a prime target when the National Socialists took control of the country in 1933. His “gymnastic typographical designs” were thought to be threatening to German morality and culture. Copies of his books were seized, Tschichold and his wife were arrested and imprisoned—nominally taken into “protective custody”— and in March of 1933, denounced as “cultural Bolshevists.” Who says design can’t be dangerous!

After an approximate six-week detention and clearance of “more serious” charges—a thorough examination of his genealogy (Aryan) and associates (non-deviant)—supporters arranged passage and he, his wife and son emigrated to Switzerland, which he would call home for the rest of his life.

Die Neue Typographie’s “radical” design precepts would be embraced to this day by generations of style-conscious designers, and its influence is considerable enough to assure its author a lifetime reputation and career. But for Tschichold, an innate humility and curiosity about typography, design and the printing process led him to the paradox at the heart of Tschichold’s creative life.

Through the ’30s and ’40s as both student and designer of print and type, Tschichold returned to an appreciation of the same classical typography and design that had inspired him in the first place—his appreciation of turn-of-the-century English typography. His youthful polemics, he insisted, were more attempts “to restore some sanity than to set any rivers afire.” He became almost a journeyman, a fundamentally practical designer and typographer, by looking to the past for standards of proportion, margins, alignment, leading, letterspacing and punctuation—no detail in the living history of the book was beyond his scrutiny and analysis. He famously dissected classical manuscript pages to reveal ratios described by the Golden Mean from which he formulated a “rational” system of design, in the process slowly-but-decisively recanting the precepts of his youthful precision and austerity with the same studious and considered authority that he had come to them in the first place.

Examples of Tschichold’s manuscript ratios in his publication The Form of the Book

Most famously he put these ideas into practice with a comprehensive and enduring program of design and composition producing a series of admired editions of Goethe and Shakespeare which brought him to the attention of Penguin Books, the British paperback publisher, who hired him to overhaul their entire family of genres and titles.

At Penguin, he found a way to accommodate a (practical) modernism and populist functionality in strict service of legibility, quality control, brand consciousness and a transparent but effortlessly communicated artfulness. A firm sense of the rules of design and typography allowed him the ability to concentrate on the character of each individual title, his personal aesthetic touch lightly but decisively apparent in the over 600 titles he designed and shepherded through ALL stages of composition and production, one book—no, one PAGE—at a time over a period of just three years..

Tschichold’s rules of design put into effect at Penguin Books

There’s a photo of Tschichold accompanying this text I love for its impishness—it suggests a intelligence both self-deprecating and joyful and the art of design as practiced by Jan Tschichold accommodates both, and in time he came to find a place for both the asymmetry and austere, the balanced, centered and classic.

A selfless and telling quote from his later writings: “The aim of typography must not be expression, least of all self-expression, but perfect communication achieved by skill.” He would add, “Typography is a servant and nothing more.”

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JOE DIZNEY, former Design Director of The Wall Street Journal and current flâneur is presently distracting himself with a study of the young Ben Franklin, as printer.

Reading about Newburgh in the newspapers these days conjures the image of inner-city woe, of teen violence, drug busts and gang warfare.  But sitting on the porch of the 1830 Captain David Crawford House affords a different view entirely.  Peeking over the rooftops of homes designed by Calvert Vaux, Frederick Clarke Withers and Frank Estabrook, reveals a spectacular view of the majestic Hudson River and the Highlands beyond.  The natural environment shaped the community: deep water ports, which brought to the shores of Newburgh bustling industry, shipping & railroad, the land above, which offered a canvas to some of the country’s most renowned architects and a view which inspired its own school of art.

The Crawford House sits just two blocks up from the Hudson River

The City of Newburgh’s architecture, history and natural beauty is its other story.  The Historical Society of Newburgh strives to tell that story through its wonderful Greek Revival headquarters.  Stepping inside the beautifully preserved Crawford House, visitors are treated to the wonderful architectural scale and details of the interior; a display of the finest New York furnishings, decorative arts, paintings, model ships, textiles and toys.  A trip to the Society archives unearths the stories of this proud city.  A city which can claim itself the birthplace of the republic, where, at Washington’s Headquarters, just a few blocks south, George Washington refused the crown.  A city of innovation, where the silver screen was invented, the first denim overalls were stitched and the first purple heart was awarded.  A city where Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Prima and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson graced the stage.

The unique architecture inside and outside of the Crawford House

Newburgh has a history, but it also has a present and a future.  Proud, dedicated, hardworking people in the community are creating a sense of place in this city, flourishing with arts, innovation and architecture once again.  Old buildings are being saved and restored with new purpose.  Young people are planting gardens, farmers markets are sprouting in back lots and music is wafting from the waterfront. Viva Newburgh!

LISA SILVERSTONE is the Director of the Historical Society of Newburgh at the Captain David Crawford House.  You can visit The Historical Society of Newburgh and the Crawford House website at http://www.newburghhistoricalsociety.com/.

We are pleased to announce that our fine leather book rebindings of the Library of America series has been included in the Most Wanted On Architectural Digest.com in their August 2010 publication!  Choose a title from one of our offered authors – from Edgar Allan Poe, Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald and many more – and have them in the half-leather or full-leather color of your choice.

View our full list list by clicking here.

Also visit the Architectural Digest website at http://www.architecturaldigest.com/.

“Architectural Digest is the authority in design and architecture, providing a vision that stretches readers’ imaginations and sets new benchmarks for the life they wish to live, whether just starting out or at the peak of achievement. The magazine’s influence offers first and exclusive access to extraordinary people, places and things across the design continuum.” – Architectural Digest mission statement.

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Thornwillow Press is a printer and publisher of handmade limited edition books, maker of engraved stationery,
invitations, announcements and custom leather book bindings. Click below to view some related work from Thornwillow.

]]> http://www.thornwillow.com/2010/07/architectural-digest-features-thornwillows-library-of-america-rebindings/feed/ 0 http://www.thornwillow.com/2010/07/time-for-ruhmtopf-by-luke-ives-pontifell/ http://www.thornwillow.com/2010/07/time-for-ruhmtopf-by-luke-ives-pontifell/#comments Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:12:11 +0000 Thornwillow Press http://www.thornwillow.com/?p=1875 -Luke Ives Pontifell]]>

As a child, I spent a good part of my summers visiting my grandparents in Hamburg, Germany and in the surrounding countryside. My grandmother was an avid gardener. Her roses exploded with the most intoxicating scent, her hedges were thick and crisp, and her gravel walks were immaculate, as though filtered with a sieve to clean out even the smallest out of place pebble. My grandparents were both Northern German, specifically from Hamburg, as we were told “since the beginning of time”. And this incredible link with place, with their Hanseatic identity, over generations, brought with it baggage and beauty not unlike what you might find on the pages of Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks. I remember well the peeling apart of the almost board-like starched linens when going to bed in the evening, not to mention the starched pajamas. And every day was punctuated by a full-on Kaffee und Kuchen ritual at four o’clock complete with towering cake stands, whipped cream, and the most wonderful aromatic coffee.

One tradition that my grandfather took particular interest in was the annual creation of the Rumtopf. It brought together into one simple project his wife’s love of the garden and his love of rum. And I think it was the only thing he ever “cooked”. The Rumtopf is extremely easy to make and spreads joy where ever it goes. It gives me great pleasure to share with you this ancient North German ritual, practiced “since the beginning of time” by my family and now that Summer is in full gear, I hope you will start on your own Rumtopf.

What you need

1. Fresh fruit
2. Sugar
3. Rum – Should be a high proof. I like Gosling’s, Barbancourt and Pusser’s rum.
4. A large crock with a lid. The bigger the better.

Here’s how it works

Over the course of the season, you will fill the pot with layers of fruit, strata, in the order that they ripen. It is good to pick a place to do this, like the cellar, that is cool (away from heat and sun) and where you can leave the pot because once you have a few layers going, you don’t want to move it. You create a layer by filling the pot evenly and generously with a layer of a particular fruit. Then you generously cover the layer with granulated sugar. Be generous with the sugar, about equal parts fruit and sugar. Then pour in rum to the level reached by the layer of fruit. When the next fruit is ready, create a new stratum, again cover generously with sugar, and add rum to the new “high water mark”. It is a good idea to weight the fruits down in the broth by putting a plate on top inside the crock. Make sure to keep the lid on the pot between layerings. Do this repeatedly through the summer and into the Fall ending with pairs. Then let the whole thing fester until Christmas time when you open the lid, thrust a ladle into it and serve the concoction with vanilla ice cream. You can also fill jars with it, affix a nice label, and give it to friends.

Traditional fruits include (be sure to pit, core, remove stems and cut into pieces anything that is too large to fit in a spoon)

Raspberries, strawberries, cherries, pineapple
Apricots, peaches, nectarines, currants
Sour cherries, yellow plums, figs, gooseberries
Purple plums, pears
Red and green seedless grapes

In the spirit of the Rumtopf, we invite you to add a favorite recipe to this post… Just plug it into the comments section below. And we will reward everyone who contributes a recipe with a $15 discount code to apply to an online purchase made within the next two weeks (valid until July 23rd) from the Thornwillow website.

LUKE IVES PONTIFELL is the President and Publisher of Thornwillow Press.  If you make a Rumtopf this season, he will be happy to taste it.

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Thornwillow Press is a printer and publisher of handmade limited edition books, maker of engraved stationery,
invitations, announcements and custom leather book bindings. Click below to view some related work from Thornwillow.

In its heyday in the 1870′s, Newburgh, New York, home to Thornwillow Press, was known nationally for unequalled scenery, nationally famous residents, and truly extraordinary architecture; quite justifiably the city of Newburgh had pride to spare. Accordingly, when the old town clock needed replacing, Newburgh could only have the very best.

Charles Fasoldt’s Clock Tower at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on the Hudson River in Newburgh, NY

For $1,750 (quite a large sum at the time; the entire church building cost $60,000) the city contracted with German immigrant Charles Fasoldt, who was by then well established as a very high-end clock and watchmaker in Albany, NY. In 1872, Mr. Fasoldt delivered to Newburgh one of his unique, elaborate and completely handmade clocks.

It might be hard for modern minds to realize, but time was for many years a public amenity, something to be supplied by the authorities at public expense, much as we might today think of fire departments or roads. Every town with any self-respect maintained a public clock that would be the standard by which the town would run.

With four gas-lit frosted glass dials placed in the highest tower in town, the clock was wound weekly just like any mantel clock. But any such resemblance ended there. How Mr. Fasoldt’s clock converts the power of the falling weight to the pendulum and hands is a study in eccentricity and an exercise in elegance.

The extraordinary mechanics invented by Charles Fasoldt

While the considerable beauty of the machine itself is hidden from all except the man who winds it, the only outside evidence of anything unusual is the movement of the minute hand. In most clocks the minute hand is in constant, very, very slow motion, every tick and every tock inching it imperceptibly on its way around the dial. But a close look at Newburgh’s Fasoldt clock (his last tower clock still in public use) shows minute hands frozen in place for 55 out of 60 seconds; only at the very end do the minute hands wake from their slumber and move a full minute’s worth in those last five seconds.

Mr. Fasoldt was said to have caught a “heavy cold” while installing this clock which prevented him from working for over a year. But he came back with a bang, winning first prize at the 1876 Centennial Exposition for a tower clock, somewhat similar but not identical to this one (he never did the same thing twice). That clock is now in a museum in Iowa.

Other differences are hidden from the public; the exquisitely finished bronze plates and wheels, the white metal bushings (presumably babbitt metal, largely tin), the escapement jewels, and an escape wheel that is not a wheel at all. The uniqueness of the Newburgh clock might be compared to a car that runs on milk. Or perhaps in this case, on heavy cream.

The beautifully restored mechanism of Fasoldt’s clock in Newburgh

In the pursuit of accuracy, especially with a tower clock that alternately freezes and bakes with the change of seasons, temperature must be taken into consideration. Metals expand with heat and contract with cold.  The length of the pendulum rod is absolutely critical to accuracy and cannot, if you’re serious about precision, be allowed to change; the metal pendulum rod cannot be allowed to get shorter in the winter and longer in the summer or the clock will run faster in winter than it does in summer.

That being said, this clock’s design compensates for wide temperature changes. In Mr. Fasoldt’s clock, the pendulum bob is not a lump of lead or iron as in a conventional clock; no, it is two iron jars that are filled with mercury, making them essentially giant thermometers. Thus, as the temperature goes up in the spring and summer, and the pendulum rod consequently gets longer, the mercury in the bob also feels the change and rises just enough in the jars to compensate, making the effective length of the pendulum the same year round. Mr. Fasoldt was not the inventor of this refinement, but few tower clocks have it.

The mercury inside the pendulums (at the top of the photo) are used to compensate it for
contraction and expansion during climate changes, thus ensuring the clock’s accuracy.

After many years of service, in the 1950′s a storm blew in one of the glass dials. As the building was just then changing hands, and the new church occupants did not have the resources to have a new dial made (and the need for a public timekeeper had become obsolete by that time), the hatch to the clock room was simply closed and the clock was forgotten. Forgotten by all but birds, that is, who found their way in and did all the things that birds do so well. For some 50 years the birds had free reign in the tower. In 1995, when some local clock enthusiasts recognized the uniqueness and value of Mr. Fasoldt’s clock adopted it, there was some serious shovellin’ to do.

One of the replaced dials of Fasoldt’s clock inside the tower

It took two years for the clock to be disassembled, cleaned, cleaned, and cleaned again, new dials to be bought and new hands made. Another Newburgh treasure, another horological treasure, was saved. Newburgh was proud to have such a remarkable clock in 1872, and is still proud today.

Photographs of the heavily damaged clock before the restoration by The Clock Club
(photographs by James Storrow; please click to see larger size)

JAMES STORROW is an avid horologist who was part of the team that repaired Charles Fasoldt’s church clock located in Newburgh, NY. For more information about horology, visit www.nawcc.org.