When was the last time you really thought about Huntsville’s town hall clock?

Never? You’re not alone: most people take the Main Street landmark for granted. But clockmaker Terry Smith would like to change that.

“Nobody thinks about the clock until it stops,” he says. “People don’t realize what’s up there; what a treasure they have.”

Smith should know. For more than three decades he has been responsible for keeping the 164-year-old timepiece running.

Once a week Smith goes up into the clock tower and winds the clock by cranking a heavy drive weight up a storey and a half. He does scheduled maintenance when the time changes twice a year and performs ongoing tweaking and trouble-shooting.

Smith can’t say enough about his admiration for the clock and what it stands for.

“The first thing you see when you come into Huntsville from any point is that tower. It has so much history,” he says.

Built in 1845 in Boston, the clock once sat in Toronto’s Union Station. It was bought by Charles Paget as a gift to Huntsville in 1927 when the town hall was constructed, and it has kept watch ever since.

Smith would like to see the clock tower opened to the public to allow people to appreciate its inner workings.

“It would be wonderful if it was a museum piece and people could see it, like the Peace Tower in Ottawa,” he explains. “How many little kids would love to go back to Toronto and say, ‘I was inside a clock’?”

The clockmaker is sure people would be in awe if they could see the huge, 12 to 15-foot pendulum and the beautiful gears he has so painstakingly maintained. And they might also get a kick out of the drive weight which powers the whole clock. The drive weight is essentially a strong wooden box filled with very old car parts like old flywheels and pieces of driveshaft.

“Anything that was metal and scrap, the makers of the clock put in,” says Smith, showing off an old hand crank he took out when the weight needed to be adjusted a few years ago.

“If the clock was on display, then people would be better able to appreciate the intricacy of what’s inside, what makes it work and the age of it,” says Smith. “That’s what makes it special.”

Smith, who has a thriving business repairing clocks and watches in Port Sydney, first took on the job of caring for the town hall clock as a teenager in 1974 when he started working for Northey Jewellers.

“My first impression when I went up there with Bob (Northey) was, ‘Wow. This is cool.’ Then I realized it was a big job,” he says. Nevertheless, he gladly took it on.

A town employee took over the task for a few years in the early 1980s, but it soon became apparent the clock required a caretaker with some expertise.

“For a while, all four clock faces were out of sequence,” Smith recalls. “It became a town joke. I remember a headline in the Forester that asked, ‘Which is right?’”

To make matters worse, Huntsville had just started using an image of the clock tower as its logo, which drew added attention to the situation. Finally, Smith got a call asking him to fix the clock and relieve the town of its embarrassment. He has kept it running smoothly ever since.

“Wind is a big factor up here. I try to get the hands accurate,” he says, noting that when heat from several fires broke the original thick glass faces on the south and west sides, they were replaced with Plexiglas, which bangs against the gears inside when it’s windy. The gears on the south side have been so damaged that they don’t show the correct time.

Some construction is taking place inside the tower right now, but when it’s complete Smith plans to repair those gears.

“Luckily, the south side is the least visible one,” he says.

Caring for the clock has presented many challenges over the years. When the civic centre renovations were finished around 2004, Smith noticed the clock was half an hour fast when he came to wind it each week. He soon discovered the tower had shifted slightly and the pendulum was hitting the wall. This shortened its swing and made the clock run faster. The solution? Enlarge the space for the pendulum and adjust the drive weight.

Smith also remembers when the New Year’s earthquake of 2000 vibrated a gear and caused the hands on all four faces to stop.

“It showed almost exactly the time of the earthquake,” he says. “That was quite something.”

About 15 years ago Smith and a clockmaker/machinist named Ben Mathieson completely disassembled the clock so each piece could be taken away and cleaned thoroughly. As they worked, Smith was impressed by the foresight of the people who had built it.

“The exterior nuts and bolts are all brass so they don’t rust,” he says. “When they made the clock, it was built for longevity. It’s going to outlast me. It’s so efficient — if it’s looked after properly.”

Smith says it has been a real privilege to keep the clock going for the community.

“The biggest commitment is babysitting the timepiece. It doesn’t take brains to wind it, but you have to know what needs to be tinkered with and what needs to be adjusted,” he says. “It’s old, and it has its aches and pains. You need to know what medicine to administer, whether it needs force or gentleness.”

Although Smith doesn’t generally like to draw attention to himself, he hopes that appearing in a magazine article will draw deserved attention to Huntsville’s town hall clock.

“I hope people will realize what a valuable, rare commodity they have and how important it is to maintain and keep that piece of history going,” he says. “Huntsville should be proud to have it.”