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The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University.

The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers.

Time & Change
When Daylight Saving Time comes or goes, a Connecticut craftsman visits the campus to keep Yale’s clocks running like—well, clockwork.
by Mark Alden Branch ’86
May/June 2005

Click here for views of and from Yale’s clocks.

Since the rise of the wristwatch, timekeeping has become an ever more personal project. But back before the privatization of time, people looked to the clocks of banks, courthouses, schools, and churches to keep track of their day.

For those of us who still do, Yale maintains clocks on several of its buildings, including Harkness Tower, the High Street bridge, Timothy Dwight College, and the Divinity School’s Marquand Chapel. Keeping them running requires an expert: in Yale’s case, it’s Kirtland H. Crump, a rather taciturn, flannel-shirted Connecticut Yankee who also happens to be a member of the British Horological Institute and the Antiquarian Horological Society.

Crump and his associate, Mark Dudley, have been maintaining most of Yale’s public clocks for many years. (Asked how long, Crump says, "Jeepers—holy smokes—since the late '80s, I guess?") Twice a year, they come in from their shop in Madison, Connecticut, which specializes in the repair and restoration of household clocks, to lubricate the campus clocks and adjust them to and from Daylight Saving Time.

The task leads them into some odd locations: a bare room at the top of William L. Harkness Hall that contains only the clockwork; the tower of Timothy Dwight College; the spectacular heights of Harkness Tower, where they pause only briefly to enjoy the view; and the Art Gallery hall that houses John Trumbull’s painting The Declaration of Independence. Does the inside tour of Yale still give them a thrill? "It’s fun," says Crump. "When we get a little older it’ll be hard to do, though.”

Most of Yale’s clocks are now electric—among the clocks that are currently working, only the one on Harkness Hall still has a pendulum movement. (An electric motor takes care of the winding.) Crump has a craftsman’s disdain for the electric movements that became popular in the 1950s, leading building owners to replace the more subtle and sophisticated originals. The "best clock in the whole university," he says, is the one in Battell Chapel, an 1870s chiming clock that has been silent and neglected for years. Crump still hopes that Yale will decide to restore it.

Photographer Mark Ostow recently followed Crump and Dudley as they made their appointed rounds, helping Yale spring forward and fall back.

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