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DENTON – For over a century, the clock tower that crowns the Caroline County Courthouse has announced the time for several generations of Caroline citizens and visitors. It has also experienced its share of facelifts and overhauls over the decades.
The latest restoration project is underway to preserve the Victorian tower that houses four clock faces and a bell. The project began Sept. 1, 2025, when the scaffolding was delivered and will be completed in about three months if the weather cooperates.
The Courthouse houses the Caroline County Circuit Court, the offices of the State’s Attorney and the Register of Wills, and the meeting room of the Board of County Commissioners, among other county entities.
Planners hoped originally that the restoration would be completed in time for weekend Summerfest Aug. 15-16, but by the time the contract was awarded, a different start-time was set.
Tecta America East LLC of Fruitland, Maryland came in with the winning bid of just under $250,000. Bidding for the project opened in late June, with the highest bid at $701,000.
Caroline County Department of Public Works Director Robin Eaton said rot had taken hold in the structure. The exterior tiles will be replaced with new, more durable tiles similar in color and shape to the existing tiles.
The clock faces are not slated for replacement, but Eaton said it is “yet to be determined what mechanisms will be upgraded, if any, based on wear.”
The clock tower has a storied history. According to newspaper accounts from the defunct Denton Journal and Times-Record archives at Newspapers.com, the original courthouse, patterned after Independence Hall in Philadelphia, was built between 1793 and 1797 at the site known as “Pig Point.”
A century later, the old brown brick courthouse was demolished to make room for the present 3-story, red brick Georgian-style building, costing $21,000 and constructed in 1895. The 1895 original architectural drawings on cloth that were discovered in a Greensboro bar during the 1970s were eventually donated in 2010 to the Maryland State Archives in Annapolis.
On Feb. 6, 1906, a “score or more of business men from all parts of the county” met to discuss adding a courthouse tower. “No public building in the county is better suited for a clock than Caroline’s courthouse,” the Denton Journal stated. “Every man in the county … would like to see the clock in the tower.”
However, it would take seven years to being raising money for the clock, estimated to cost $900. H. Clay Hobbs, president of the Peoples Bank of Denton, headed the subscription fundraising campaign. The clock was shipped by rail. In May 1914, George Witham and other employees of the E. Howard Clock Company in Boston, Massachusetts, finished installing the “handsome Court House tower clock,” according to the Denton Journal.
The dials of the new clock were made of “white glass, about four feet in diameter, with hands and figures in sharp contrast, so as to be seen for a long distance,” stated the Denton Journal. The striking of the hour could be heard several miles away in calm weather.
In flowery prose, the Denton Journal stated that “the big timepiece will become the standard chronometer for the many, telling the hours in very loud and dulcet tones to the two thousand Dentonians and fully as many more in the country. …”
After World War II, the County Commissioners decided it would be prudent to electrify the clock, resulting in less upkeep. The heavy pendulum and attached ropes were deemed potentially dangerous, so the Tower Clock Service Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, cleaned and electrified the clock for about $600 in February 1946.
In August 1952, the same company serviced, refinished and repainted the four faces inside and outside.
In the early 1980s, the clock tower was repaired but not redesigned. The County Commissioners at the time decided against replacing the Victorian cupola with a Georgian-style tower in order to match the courthouse architectural style. In 1981, county officials estimated the project cost at about $50,000.
The red and gray slates were replaced and new interior support beams to replace rotting timber. Refurbishing also included removal of the four clock faces for inspection and repair, as well as new wiring.
The tower was repaired again in late 2006, early 2007. The County Commissioners had expected the work to cost $50,000, but the winning bid came in at $23,539.
