Editor

Call it the first step in a dance that could take several years before you hear any music, or, considering the subject of the project, call it the first bong of the Winnsboro Town Clock bell.

The Town of Winnsboro recently learned they have been approved for a $20,000 state Archives and History grant to fund a story on what’s needed to preserve the Town Clock.

The grant is a $20,000 grant with a 50 % match that was required to be put up by the Town of Winnsboro. According to the funding agreement, the ‘purpose of the grant is to conduct a conditions assessment and determine necessary repairs for the Town Clock and public market building in downtown Winnsboro.’

The S.C. Department of Archives and History is the grant administrator for this grant, which comes from federal funds through the National Park Service, Department of the Interior.

The purpose of the grant is to see what will be needed to stabilize the structure of the Town Clock, said downtown development director Jill Cincotta.

Cincotta will leave her post as downtown development director later this week. Cincotta and former community development director Betsy Boulware worked on applying for this grant.

The clock structure has some dry rot in some areas, Cincotta said, and there are holes in the roof that are letting in water, which causes more damage.

Like a pair of archaeologists, Cincotta and Boulware’s researched the clock when they were beginning this grant and unearthed some interesting information.

“We were talking about this grant, and Betsy and I were poking around in old building plans, and we opened up a drawer and found plans for the Town Clock repairs,” Cincotta said.

“They tell key information about what happened in the late 1930s,” she said.

The plans, bearing the legend ‘Restoring Town Hall for Winnsboro’ were drawn by a ‘James M. Workman, Engineer,’ in November of 1939, following the Winnsboro Hotel Fire. The Town Clock at that time served as Town Hall and was damaged in the fire.

The blueprint drawings show a plan for repairing the Town Clock by building an inside sleeve of brick to shore up the damaged outer shell of the building.

Workman also took the time to meticulously measure and record many elements of the building, including cross-sections of the different types of decorative molding found inside and out the building.

“The plans explained a lot, because there were some things about the Town Clock that didn’t make sense to me, like the way the back entrance is bricked over with different bricks, and how when you go up in the Town Clock tower, there’s an inner sleeve of structure.

“There are the bricks you see on the outside of the building, and then there’s another structure of bricks on the inside. There’s the wall and then there’s a dead space between that, and then the inner structure of brick,” said Cincotta.

In fact, the drawings show that very design for the repair.

Anyone who has been up in the Town Clock tower knows that there are places where the twisting staircase is very close, uncomfortably close, some might say, to the wall of the tower.

Another clue was the condition of the copper-sheathed rooftop.

“There’s a copper roof, and when you look outside, just below the railing that goes around the tower, you see the copper roof has been patched here and there,” Cincotta pointed out.

The piecemeal repairs to the roof over the years have let water in to cause some damage and dry rot.

“The drawings show why the repairs were done, but not why it had to be done. We grabbed that story from different places, so it was a fascinating discovery,” Cincotta said.

The current grant will, in a way, build on the work down in 1939 as an assessment will be conducted to determine what is needed for preservation. The next step will be to draw up some new plans, and then determine what the cost of any preservation project would be.

So why preserve the venerable old Winnsboro landmark?

“The Town Clock is so iconic for us; it’s this Town’s claim to fame. It’s on all of our logos, and having the Chamber of Commerce there (since the 1940s when it was no longer Town Hall) is such a nice thing for the community.

“I think everyone, no matter who you are, can identify with the Town Clock. It’s the landmark in Town. Everyone gives directions in Town based on the Town Clock,” she said.

It’s that immediate identity that everyone share with the Town Clock that Cincotta and her successors in the Town Development Department will hope to capitalize on when it comes time to raise the money for the Town Clock preservation project.

That’s when the real community work will begin, Cincotta said.

She leaves a plan in place to solicit business, industry and the local community to help raise the funds for the eventual preservation of the Clock.

In the meantime, the on-the-hour striking of the bell that can be heard all through Town, will be a reminder that the Town is waiting for us to preserve it.