Ketterer Apostle Clock

The following presentation provides descriptions, pictures, and information regarding the Ketterer Apostle Clock. I believe there have been eleven apostle clocks since 1872. The Ketterer Clock is the first, and one of the most complicated and impressive. Judging by the complexity of this clock and the fine workmanship, both technical and artistic, it is apparent that Charles Ketterer was a mechanical genius. After his clock was completed in 1872, Ketterer toured the eastern United States, setting up his clock in one city after another and charging admission to see it and hear his speech. I have some original handbills and other documentation with the clock. In 1881 the clock simply vanished and was missing for eighty years. It was found by accident in the basement of a pool hall in Covington, Ohio, in the early 1960's. The last forty years or so, the clock has been in the hands of three successive collectors, who have effected some restorations. The rediscovery of the clock has been handled so discretely, that I have not seen a single article about it in recent horological literature. Its availability for sale is a major historical and horological event.

The clock is massive, measuring approximately five feet tall by three feet wide and three feet deep. It is intricately and beautifully carved. It sits on a four-foot base, which would give it an effective height of nine feet. Ketterer designed the clock to come apart into sections, so he could move it easily. The dismantled clock could be transported in a van or pickup truck. The clock was appraised in the 1870's at $20,000, an impressive sum at the time. As to the clock's current value, most people say it is "priceless." One person ventured that it might be worth "a quarter of a million" when fully restored and running.

The previous owner of the clock, one of my best friends, died in June 2001. He told me that the clock is "about ninety-nine percent whole," and that he only had to make a few parts in order to render it operable. I wish to make it clear that, while the clock is virtually complete, the eventual owner will need the services of a competent machinist or horologist, if he wishes the clock to operate.

Above is the full-face view of the clock (without its base or hands). I wish you could project this picture on the wall, so it is five feet tall, as it is difficult to realize how large the clock is from this picture. Remember that this five-foot clock rests on a four-foot base, making the total nine feet tall. Below are a few close up details from the clock.

Here are some of the apostles in their march. Note beautiful detail of robes, beards, background, and railing. Part of Ketterer's hype was to advertise that he made the whole clock "with two pocket knives." Of course if you know about woodcarving and machining gears, you will see from the pictures that such a claim is wanton hyperbole. In fact, he did himself and his clock a disservice by such a claim. Some who haven't seen the clock have believed the pocketknife propaganda and scoffed that it can't be much of a clock if he carved it with pocketknives.

This is a close-up of Moses with the tablets of the law. Note detail in beard and face.

I wish you could see the movement in person. It is hard to show its complexity and excellent design from the available photographs. The gearing is meticulously made. The gears in the Ketterer clock are cut like gearing in cars and factory machines. They are not of the same configuration as normal brass or wood clock gears. Within the movement is a nest of bells for playing the chimes, as well as other interesting features and innovations.

Here's a side view of the movement, which shows detail of some gears.

Below are a couple of newspaper articles. Both of them had to be re-typed, as the copies available were too poor to photocopy or scan. The first article gives some contemporary flavor, as well as some details about the clock. This article appeared in 1874, soon after the clock was completed and while it was on tour. The second article is a feature story about the couple that re-discovered the missing clock. The article appeared in 1971, a few years after that discovery.

"The Apostolic Excelsior Clock" - A wonderful piece of mechanism, in the shape of a clock, is now on exhibition at Smith's Hall, in this borough, the last exhibition to take place this Saturday evening. All who have not already visited it would do well to do so, as it is well worth seeing. The following description of it will be interesting to those who have no opportunity of seeing the curious piece of workmanship.

This remarkable piece of mechanism is five feet high and three feet wide, and is supported by a stand four feet high, through which pass the weights. On the right side of the dial plate is the figure of Moses holding the stone tablets, and on the left side a figure of Elias. The dial plates present four indicators, one showing the hours and minutes, another the month, a third the day of the week, and a fourth the day of the month. The clock strikes the quarter hours on two small bells, and the hours on the large one. Over the top indicator is a small disk, indicating the age of the moon, and on either side the statue of Archangel Michael and old Father Time. All this is surrounded with Gothic windows and finely carved pillars, and on each side stands an Egyptian obelisk. Above the dial is the inscription: "The Apostolic Excelsior Clock." In the middle of the upper section stands the figure of Christ, holding a flag in his hand, and above it, in the half circle, s an appropriate inscription in German. A miniature gallery surrounds the whole upper part. Shortly after twelve o'clock noon, a door at the left of the statue of Christ, opens, and twelve Apostles move out and pass about the statue, while the bells toll a chime. Peter is at the lead carrying a key, and all others have an emblem indicating who they are. When each one arrives opposite the figure of Christ, it turns its face towards him for a second, and then passes, except Judas, who passes straight along. After Peter has passed, the bells cease to toll, and a cock crows loud and flaps his wings. The door then opens on the opposite side and the Apostles pass in when the cock crows again. This march can be produced at any time at the will of the operator. The upper part of the clock is elaborately and tastefully carved, and is surmounted by a globe, over which is a cross; on one side of the upper part is the aforesaid cock, and on the other is an eagle. The world appears to be round, but it has sixteen corners at regular intervals, being a very similar work to the great Strasbourg Clock, which was built sometime during the fourteenth century, the like of which has never been reproduced.

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JEAN KAPPELL'S DAYTON

A Tale of Love's Labor Lost

There's an old earthen basement in Covington, Ohio. Dank, dark and creepy, reached through a trap door in a poolroom floor.

There Dot and Don Real discovered a jumble of broken dreams.

Dot and Don live in Kettering. They collect old music-makers and had come to Covington searching for copper-plated music box disks: They found a marvel and a mystery instead.

Scattered about in mouldy dirt, wherever past floodings had floated them, lay bits and pieces of automata-wooden figures marvelously carved, new-pencil high. Once they played puppet parts in an elaborate mechanized drama. The huge clock nearby had been their stage and source of power. Though its ornate, castle-like casing was damaged, its workings were still nearly intact.

Long ago-how long? Don wondered-the clock's chiming had brought these wooden figures to life, to move, promenade, gesture, and act out a preview of Judgment Day.

By torchlight the Real's could make out the masterwork's name. Handcarved letters had once been glued above the four faces that record the minutes, the hours, the day of the week and the day of the month.

APOSTOLIC EXCELSIOR CLOCK the letters read. Beneath them were stars and a blue-eyed window that reported the phases of the moon. Don flashed his torch back to the basement floor, playing it over ruins wrought by damp, neglect and time.

"A bushelful of giblets," he pronounced gloomily, examining fragments at random. The thrice-broken hand of an apostle. A book held by another. Father Time with his face rotted through. Christ's furled, tapered banner, fallen. Innumerable wood-silver feathers once hand-applied to the eagle that perched in one tower and the cock that perched in another, crowing Doomsday, flapping his wings.

Only the Devil and a skeleton Death symbol seemed to be all of a piece. Don examined the blazing-eyed Satan and his companion archangel, both once raised and lowered by an elevator system in the clock's crown.

"THEY'RE OF A DIFFERENT style," he decided. "Probably the maker added them later to spice up the show."

Of course they bought the clock. Not because ex-tool-maker Don is a Mr. Anything-Fixit. "Clocks," he says with emphasis, "are farthest out of our line."

But because, as Dot says-

"We couldn't stand to see such work lying there rotting. The clock had to be saved. We thought of the man who had put so many loving hours into carving those figures, and every bit of mechanism. All woden [sic], you know. Over 20,000 pieces!

"Whoever he was, he had a right to have his work preserved."

You can tell from the picture that Don has done some restoring. "Though I kind of cheat when I carve replacements. I saw them out first."

THEIR OLD SYMBOLS are back in the hands of several apostles. Peter, leading, carries his key; Judas, trailing, his bag of silver. Though the archangel's scales of justice are missing, Elias is positioned, Moses holds his tablets of laws. The dove and the cross are back in place on top of the globe, and the globe itself again surmounts the crown of the edifice.

But the lettering on the proscenium arch, above Christ in the center of the gallery, was in German and beyond Don's deciphering.

"I think the first word is 'Simmelan,'" he says. "Could that be?"

It took the Reals several hours to dis-assemble [sic] clock and packing case and get them out of their limbo. "There had been an outside door to the building's basement, long since cemented over."

Then began the affectionate labor that engages their interest even more than restoration. Patchworking clues-part evidence, part hunch-to the story of a Pennsylvania coal miner, master-carver of the early 1870s, whose trail of hopes led to Covington where his life's work fell apart.

WITH THE HELP of old advertising bills and flyers, none of them complete, Dot and Don have partially bridged the 100 years since Charles Ketterer began work on his $20,000 masterpiece.

It's completion date is 1872. It's advertised dimensions were five feet tall and four feet wide on a stand four feet high. Its "March of the apostles can be produced at any time at the will of the operator." All apostles except Judas turn solemnly and bow to Christ in their progression.

Dot and Don know the rooster crows: they found his mechanism. And that Ketterer's "great work of art" was described as "similar to the Great Strasburg Clock of the 14th century."

They know it was exhibited-adults 25-cents, children 15-cents-at Eliot's Academy of Music in McKeesport, Pa., in February, 1874. And that Charles Ketterer's genius was compared, in verse, to that of Milton, Shakespeare and Morse.

But then? The rest of the story is heresay [sic] and guesswork. The last shipping label on the packing case is dated Chicago, Jan. 8, 1881. Says Don:

"SO HE TOURED with the clock. But the most recent advertising sheets in the packing case sound kind of desperate. Any child was admitted for a nickel to see the clock perform-with a talking machine added to the show.

"The father of the man who owns the building in Covington bought it from another who apparently lent Ketterer some money when his show in the old Union hall there went broke. The lender took the clock as collateral . . ."

Don's voice trails off. The three of us stand in the Real's basement looking at the clock, feeling a strange, unspoken sadness. Don turns, rummages in a cabinet drawer where the spare parts are kept, and draws out three items.

One is a tiny beeswax candle in a handmade holder: many such must have been used to illuminate the apostle clock's carvings. The second is a small whetstone, worn to the point of an arrowhead. The third is a metal faced penknife, worn and rusted.

"Charles left these behind-all the tools he needed-when he lost his clock." Don says.

-THE END-