Clocktower: IIII for four o'clock

Clocktower clock, Maynard, MA

Admire the clock faces on the Clocktower clock. On each, four o'clock is designated by a Roman numeral "IIII." Which begs the question, why not "IV?"

The best-supported answer is that Romans did not always use Roman numerals the way we do. We use a subtractive mode (IV instead of IIII, IX instead of VIIII), which became the standard in Europe long after the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. IIII was used on Roman era sundials, and appears to have been carried forward in time to Renaissance era clocks.

Another theory is that IIII provides more visual symmetry for the clock face, with clock makers conforming to this practice by design. With IIII for four and VIII for eight, the two numbers opposing each other are of similar width. Jibing with this concept is the fact that the same clocks that do not use subtractive mode for four do use it for nine (IX), creating a closer visual match for III on the other side. Finally, using IIII means that the first third of the clock face has I's, the next third has V's and the final third has X's. Internet searching yields a few other explanations, but these two - tradition and symmetry - make the most sense.

Clock faces incorporate other traditions. When the Hindu-Arabic numbering system (1,2,3,4,5...) is used, all numbers are oriented to be top end up when the face is viewed vertically, but Roman numerals (I,II,III,IIII,V...) are oriented to be top end up from the viewpoint of the center of the face, facing outward. Was this to be radially symmetric or functional? Likely the latter, carried forward in time by tradition. Think of walking up to a sundial; with your back to the sun the shadow cast by the upright will be opposite you and the number it points to will be right side up.

Clock hands proceed clockwise. In the Northern hemisphere a horizontal sundial will have twelve o'clock oriented due north. As the sun's position in the sky shifts from east to south to west the shadow will move around the top arc of the face left to right. When mechanical clocks were perfected in Europe the sundial's movement was mimicked for its familiarity. Hence, the worldwide convention is clockwise. (It is possible to buy novelty clocks that run counterclockwise.)

If sundials had spread to the rest of the world from the southern hemisphere then the sun's shadow would have proceeded across the top arc from right to left and mechanical clocks might well have followed that tradition to end up going the opposite direction of what we know accept. (Of course, this manner of movement would have been called "clockwise.")

The earliest mechanical clocks did not have hands or faces. In Catholic Europe, these devices were installed in church towers to automate ringing of bells meant to signify daily calls to prayer. Hours were signified by bells. Time was audible rather than visual.

Clocktower clock face from inside the clock

External clock faces and hands were added once clock mechanisms became more accurate. Standards of design now call for a short, stout hour hand, a longer, thinner minute hand and a very thin second hand, often a different color. Days have 24 hours but clock faces have only 12, mostly because a clock face with 24 numbers would be too crowded. Smart watches keep digital time (either 12- or 24-hour) but can display analog faces. The French Revolution brought the world the metric system of measuring distance and weight, but the metric clock (10 hours, 100 minutes per hour, 100 seconds per minute) was an epic fail.

Time used to be local. Starting in the 1800s, problems were caused by railroads traveling so far in a day as to be servicing cities each maintaining its own local time. The solution, reached in 1883, was to agree on dividing the U.S. into four time zones, with concord on accurate time within and between zones made possible by telegraph.  

Close-up of gears at the clock face

In print advertising for watches and clocks it is traditional to show the time as 10:10. Maynard's Town Seal shows the Clocktower clock at 12:10 to indicate the more than century long tradition - abandoned in 2011 - of the fire department conducting a daily test of the fire horn at ten minutes after noon.

I am really sad that the fire station's fire horn no longer sounds at 12:10. I found that 125 dB electric horns and a control box could be purchased from SENTRY SIREN and installed at the mill complex, perhaps on the Clocktower or chimney.   

     

Coolidge School: Past, Present and Future

Town of Maynard website: "In December 2014 the school’s main tenant, The Maynard Public Schools Administration, vacated the building. Now the town must decide what to do with Coolidge: use it, sell it, demolish it."

Click on any photo to enlarge

Going back to beginnings: May 1905, townspeople voted to appropriate the sum of $18,000 to purchase 18 lots of land (total area a bit larger than 2.5 acres) located between Route 27 and Bancroft Street, and build thereon a one-story, four-room, flat-roofed, brick school building. Maynard issued ten $1800 bonds, maturing one each year for ten years, each paying 3.5% annual interest until mature. Actual cost was $20,841.30. 

Construction of the Bancroft Street School - four classrooms - was completed in time for the beginning of the 1906-07 school year. The building was really two stories tall on the back (playground) side, with the lower level containing furnaces, an assembly hall and student bathrooms. One immediate problem - the roof leaked. Repairs were ineffective. Roof replacement was deferred until 1909 when the Town Building Committee recommended that another floor of four more classrooms be added. This project's budget was $12,000. It was completed in time for the start of the 2011-12 school year. Classrooms on both floors were about 25x30 feet.

Calvin Coolidge Elementary School, Maynard, MA
Used as school 1906-1981; admin building thereafter

The impetus for this and subsequent expansions of the school system was a population explosion of school age children. State law required school for children ages 7-14. The mill complex had been taken over by the American Woolen Company in 1899, which almost immediately began major expansion and hiring. Maynard's population soared from 3,100 in 1900 to 6,400 by 1910. Many of the new hires were immigrants from Europe, here with their entire families. Student enrollment increased from 600 students in 1900 to 730 by 1904, 900 by 1910 and 1,300 by 1915. Throughout this period, Maynard's teachers were dealing with 40-50 students per classroom.   

The Bancroft site was selected for being near the new mill-owned housing development. From one of Maynard's Walking Tour guides: "The New Village contains 206 houses (150 singles and 56 duplexes), built beginning in 1903. All streets were named for presidents. A typical house sits on a 4000-5000 square foot parcel. Thirteen different styles of houses were built. The village was built on the old Mahoney and Reardon farms and boasted a private sewer system. Each house had pine flooring, a cold water tap, a toilet in the cellar, and no central heat. Houses were rented to mill employees for $3-6 per month." That rent sounds unimaginably low, but in that era it would have represented 10-20 percent of a worker's pay.

Side view shows basement level; note window ACs

Bancroft became Calvin Coolidge School in 1932, same time Main Street School became Woodrow Wilson School. Coolidge's use as a school ended in 1981. Wilson burned in 1952; site now town's administrative building and police station.

The decision to close Coolidge was a combination of enrollment shrinking from the school system's 1970 peak of 2,098 students plus financial restrictions imposed by Proposition 2½, a property tax restriction that was going into effect in 1982.

The Board of Selectmen appointed people to a Coolidge School Re-use Committee in order to study and propose alternative uses, including keep, lease, sell or demolish. The decision was to keep the building within the school system. The building underwent a major renovation in 1984. Until recently it housed the school system's administrative offices and other operations such as Maynard Adult Learning Center and Food Pantry. It currently stands empty.

Coolidge Community Park, Maynard, MA updated 2013
Back of Coolidge School building in background

Now, Maynard's Board of Selectmen has appointed a Coolidge School Re-use Task Force, which meets twice a month at Town Hall (meetings open to public), and is charged with recommending a course of action for the building and all property - including playground - before the end of June.

Problems abound. The building is listed with the Massachusetts Historic Commission as a historic property, and probably would qualify for the National Register of Historic Properties. Abiding by these strictures would limit what can be done to the outside of the building. Interiors are rarely designated historic. For example, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Law has deemed 31,000 properties as landmarks, but only 117 of those are for interiors. Conservative estimates are that the Coolidge building would need between $2.5-3.5 million for repairs and modernization.

Damaged brick wall around back

Maynard has been down this road before. The Roosevelt School closed in 1988, after Green Meadow School was enlarged, then stood empty and deteriorating until it was resurrected in 2006 as the Library, at a cost of $5.7 million, partially covered by a $2.1 million grant from the state's Board of Library Commissioners.

P.S. Back then, children were also required by law to be vaccinated - meaning smallpox. Massachusetts was one of eleven states with mandatory vaccination. In 1905 a case was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court :Jacobson vs. Massachusetts, in which an adult man refused to be vaccinated. His case drew support from the Massachusetts Anti-Compulsory Vaccination Association. He lost by a 7 to 2 vote. The decision in the favor of the greater good of the community was reaffirmed in 1922, when the Supreme Court ruled that a school system could refuse to accept a student that had not been vaccinated.

Fifty of David Mark’s 2012-2014 columns were published in book "Hidden History of Maynard" available at The Paper Store, on-line, and as an e-book.

SNOW - a Record Year for Boston

There are winters wherein February sees the first snowdrops and crocuses of spring, but it is not this year. There are years wherein the first returning robins are already arriving, but it is not this year. There are years the snow blower goes untouched, the snowmobile trailered to Maine, but not this year. This year we struggle against the white, the ever recurring, ever piling higher snows of the winter of 2014-15. By all that you hold dear on this frozen earth, you must shovel, women and men of Massachusetts.   

WINTER 2015: Fence is six feet tall.   Click on any photo to enlarge

This winter's snow totals ended with a new record for Boston, close for Worcester. These two cities, each with 125 years of weather data, average 44 and 64 inches, respectively. Previously, the snowiest winter on record for both cities was 1995-96, at 107.6 and 132.9 inches. As of April 15, 2015, Boston tallied 110.6 inches and Worcester 119.7 inches, making it now Boston's snowiest winter in recorded history. Worcester finished at third snowiest. (Interestingly, 2011-12 was the 2nd least snowiest for Boston, with 9.3 inches.) 

Snowfall measurement methods are described in great detail in a 14 page document from the National Weather Service. Briefly, if snow is falling continuously, depth in the measuring device is measured every six hours, the device emptied and set out again. This maximizes measurement for large storms because it reduces the compression effect of late snow piling up on early snow.

One reason for the records being set this winter is that all snow is not created equal. Wet snow means 6-8 inches convert to one inch of water, but the northeasters that have been repeatedly sweeping through our area have been cold enough to generate powdery snow that is averaging 17-18 inches per inch of water. Telling here is that the thirty days of storms that put so much snow on the ground will in time melt to only five inches of water - above average for this time of year but in no way record setting.  

Other reasons are meteorological. Weather forecasting professionals toss about terms such as North Atlantic Oscillation, the "Ridiculously Resilient Ridge" and Polar Vortex.  The net result was that over a short period of time the storms were colder, larger, and every storm dumped on eastern Massachusetts, with little melting between storms. February 2015 was Boston's second coldest on record. For the entire month, an average of 18.8 (F) and only three days had a high temperature above freezing.       

ICICLE: Estimated at ten feet and 100-150 pounds

Whatever happened to global warming? The short answer is that New England is getting wetter faster than it is getting warmer. For Boston, over a 120 year period the average temperature has gotten one degree (F) warmer, but 10 percent wetter. As a result, winter is two weeks shorter, but six of the top ten snowiest winters have occurred in the last 22 years. As storms track up the east coast the warmer (and thus wetter) air over the ocean blows inland over/atop cold air, resulting in more snow.

At some point in the future the temperature trend will mean more winters of wet snow, sleet, ice storms and rain. Portland, Maine has already experienced the crossover: weather records dating back to 1870 show two degrees of warming, a 15 percent increase in total precipitation, but a decrease in annual snowfall from 75 to 65 inches. When it comes, the crossover will affect Boston before it impacts the inland cities and towns.

On closer parsing of snowfall records, the less snow trend is already showing up in Boston. but intermittently. The 40 years from 1975 to present contain 7 of 10 of the snowiest winters (over 75 inches) AND 8 of 10 of the least snowiest winters (under 20 inches). 

The first paragraph of this column was a riff on the "But it is not this day" pre-battle speech in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Other fictional pre-battle speeches to outnumbered, underdog troops include those from movies Braveheart and Independence Day, and the progenitor of them all, the St. Crispin's Day speech from Shakespeare's play, Henry V. That speech gave us five repeats of "...this day..." and also the line "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers..."

The Lord of the Rings/The Return of the King (Lord Aragorn speaking)

Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers!
I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me.
A day may come when the courage of Men fails,
When we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship,
But it is not this day.
An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Man comes crashing down,
But it is not this day!
This day we fight!
By all that you hold dear on this good earth,
I bid you stand, Men of the West!

Henry V (King Henry V speaking)

    What's he that wishes so? 
    My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin; 
    If we are mark'd to die, we are enow 
    To do our country loss; and if to live, 
    The fewer men, the greater share of honour. 
    God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. 
    By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, 
    Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; 
    It yearns me not if men my garments wear; 
    Such outward things dwell not in my desires. 
    But if it be a sin to covet honour, 
    I am the most offending soul alive. 
    No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England. 
    God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour 
    As one man more methinks would share from me 
    For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more! 
    Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, 
    That he which hath no stomach to this fight, 
    Let him depart; his passport shall be made, 
    And crowns for convoy put into his purse; 
    We would not die in that man's company 
    That fears his fellowship to die with us. 
    This day is call'd the feast of Crispian. 
    He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, 
    Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd, 
    And rouse him at the name of Crispian. 
    He that shall live this day, and see old age, 
    Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, 
    And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.' 
    Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, 
    And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.' 
    Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, 
    But he'll remember, with advantages, 
    What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, 
    Familiar in his mouth as household words- 
    Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, 
    Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester- 
    Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red. 
    This story shall the good man teach his son; 
    And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, 
    From this day to the ending of the world, 
    But we in it shall be remembered- 
    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; 
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me 
    Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, 
    This day shall gentle his condition; 
    And gentlemen in England now-a-bed 
    Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, 
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks 
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Winter snow records posted at http://goldensnowglobe.com/current-top-10-snowiest-cities/ 

Oldest Houses in Maynard

Maynard's oldest buildings still standing were not the oldest built. Modest farmsteads located along the roads connecting the older towns of Concord, Sudbury, Stow and Marlborough were torn down and replaced with larger homes as the original settlers prospered. Later, with the advent of the paper, gunpowder and wool mills, houses close to the center of Assabet Village (not yet officially Maynard) were replaced by mill worker housing. More old farmsteads were lost when the government seized most of southern Maynard for Army use as a munitions depot during World War II.

What remains is a scattering of upper middle-class homes, some once owned by descendants of John Smith (1622-1687). John came from England to the colonies in 1638. Nine years later he was married and living in Sudbury. Our lineage of interest is John to Thomas to Amos, then to two of Amos' six children - Benjamin and Jonathan - and their children and grandchildren. Note that 'named' houses are not always named after the original owners.

Georgian style with two chimneys, High Street, Acton

Descriptions of houses built in the late 1700s can wax eloquent about Georgian or the subsequent, more decorative, Federalist style of architecture, but the core of both designs is a rectangular 2.5 story house, five windows wide, two windows deep, centered front door, and either a large central chimney or twin chimneys. Each chimney has more than one fireplace in service of different rooms, including upstairs rooms. Windows are small and multi-pane. Additions are common, sometimes extending so as to link the house to what had been a separate barn or carriage house. (A style known as New England Connected Farm.)

William Smith House, 206-208 Great Road (1780): First owner not known, but William Smith (Benjamin's son) lived there a long time. In 1892 the Town of Maynard purchased it for an almshouse. According to one history, "Here, Maynard's indigents and transients were fed and housed. Those who were able-bodied labored on the 20 acre town farm to produce food for themselves and other needy townspeople. They also chopped wood to heat the schools and other public buildings." The farmland is now the Maynard High School athletic field.

Levi Smith House, 178 Great Road (1770): Central chimney and later additions. It was built for Jonathan Smith and then sold to his son Levi in 1810. After the Great Road bridge over the Assabet River was built in 1816, Levi operated his house as a tavern - the Red Fox Inn - until his death in 1848. 

The dark brown house two houses to the west, sporting a sign, "The Orchard," dates to 1810, its ownership going from Jonathan to another son, Noah. Ownership of the land the house is on dates back to Thomas Smith, Jonathan's grandfather.  

George Smith House, 38 Great Road (1785):  First owner not known, but George lived here next door to his father Haman, who was at 36 Great Road (built 1835). That house went from Haman to another son - Benjamin - who was named after Haman's father. Both houses started as Federal style, with five windows across the front over a centered door, plus many subsequent additions and outbuildings. The Ben Smith Bridge (1816) was named after the first Benjamin while the nearby Ben Smith Dam (1846), built for the wool mill, was named after the second Benjamin, his grandson.  

Click on photos to enlarge

Asa Smith House, 84 Summer Hill Road (1780): There is a dispute here, as there are claims for 1780, but the plaque on the house reads circa 1820. Asa lived in this house and owned the dam and mill, which was used for grinding grain, pressing cider and sawing lumber. This house was the first place Amory Maynard lived when he moved to Assabet Village. Along with the house, Maynard bought the water usage rights, then had much of the river's volume diverted via a canal to the mill pond for his new wool mill. Before Asa Smith, the mill, if not the house, had been owned by Joseph Jewell and then his son John, and was known as "Jewell's Mill" from 1694 to 1815. 

And the oldest: Silas P. Brooks House, 88-90 Summer Street (1764): Georgian style architecture, with a large central chimney and many subsequent additions. It was built for Luke and Lucy (Wheeler) Brooks. Luke was in the Stow militia company that marched to Concord the morning of April 19, 1775; he later served as a Private in the Revolutionary War. His son Silas Brooks and Silas' son Silas Potter Brooks (1815-1888), inherited the house. Silas P. was one of the signers of the 1871 petition to form the Town of Maynard (as were two other Brooks and seven Smiths). 

The Brooks family owned lots of land on the north side of Maynard, including what became Brooks Street. Charles Brooks was the first resident of my house. A deed in the county courthouse shows A&L Maynard Company selling the property to Charles Brooks in 1870 for $2,430. The 1870 U.S. Census described him as a 56 year old widower working at a saw mill, with four teenage daughters. While digging a garden bed we found a small glass bottle that had held "Bachelor's No. 1 Liquid Hair Dye." Perhaps Mr. Brooks was darkening his grey hair in the hopes of finding a second wife.

Honorable mention: the house at 101 Summer Street is part brick construction. The one story brick portion, painted white and close to the road, was District #5 school house for Stow, completed prior to 1789 (possibly as early as 1766?) and in operation as a school until 1872. Many of the town's founding families sent their children there, including Amory Maynard.

Fire Alarm Call Boxes soon to be History

Trademark is clenched fist and lightning bolts
over the company name, registered 1879

Maynard's outdoor fire alarm call box system will be replaced with new technology. The existing boxes are painted red and white (with one exception), and either attached to a telephone pole, the side of a building or mounted on a pedestal, such as the one facing Nason Street in Memorial Park. In Maynard, the top of the face of each call box (with one exception) displays GAMEWELL below a clenched hand holding lightning bolts. This symbol was registered as a trademark in 1879. A few of Maynard's call boxes are topped with red lights. Sides have decals - often severely faded - reading "FIRE" in red letters on a white background.

The exceptions: On the wall of Suburban Glass and Mirror, on Powder Mill Road, the call box is branded SAFA. The initials stand for Superior American Fire Alarm & Signal Co., Meriden, Connecticut. SAFA was competing with Gamewell in the 1950s, but no longer exists by that name. How Maynard ended up with one SAFA box is a mystery. [UPDATE: The SAFA call box has been removed.] The other exceptions are the boxes at Reo Park and Green Meadow School are painted white with blue trim.

January 29, 1921: Maynard Hotel lost to fire despite
timely efforts of the fire department

Gamewell, named after the owner, John N. Gamewell, was the New York and Massachusetts based company that had provided Maynard with its first box, in 1892, and is still in business today as a division of Honeywell. Because of a peaked roof design their outdoor call boxes are referred to as cottage style.

From a website: "Boxes were installed on buildings such as churches, schools, movie theaters and major factories. This was to provide a reliable method of sending a fire alarm from the protected facility to the fire department. These boxes were placed to provide for a rapid response to incidents where there was a large life-loss potential, schools for instance, or the potential for a large economic impact to the community such as a large factory."

Older boxes were made of cast iron and weighed close to 75 pounds. Manufacturing was located in Newton, MA, on the Charles River, a long-time iron works site. Decades later, cast aluminum replaced iron, so the newer boxes weighed a tad under 28 pounds. Up until some time in the 1970's the lower front read "Newton, Massachusetts," changed to "Medway, Massachusetts." Most (all?) of Maynard's call boxes read "Newton."

Gamewell call box on pedestal, Memorial Park
Click on any photo to enlarge

As noted above, Maynard acquired its first alarm box in 1892. Expansion was slow. The count reached 8 by 1903, 22 by 1938 and 30 by 1953. Maynard currently maintains more than 70 call boxes, plus a handful that are still out there but not operative, so wrapped in plastic.

Back when the town's annual reports used to have a list of call boxes, there was a subset described as phantom boxes. This term referred to sites throughout town without real boxes yet assigned box numbers. There was a filing system at the fire station with all the box numbers - real and phantom - and when a call came by telephone, the desk man pulled the card and then tapped out the box number (and thus location) to the responding crew.

However, in this era of 9-1-1 and cell phones, the use of outdoor-mounted call boxes to report fires has dramatically declined while the cost of maintaining the system has increased. The fire department's  intent, over the next two years, is to ship Maynard's boxes to other towns. Maynard's system will be modernized to radio call boxes akin to cell phone technology.  

One of the old Gamewell boxes - from the site of the now demolished Oriental Delight restaurant, formerly Russo's - has been donated to the Maynard Historical Society. It was recently on display at the Maynard Public Library as part of an exhibit on the history of the fire department.