THE SETH THOMAS CLOCK

Another tale from the master storyteller, Bud Phillips.
Bud had given me permission to use his stories in my Kinfolks
articles.

The Seth Thomas weight clock had been brought from Georgia by the
Culbertsons when they moved by covered wagon to their farmstead,
far up the Little Buffalo River,and near present Murray. To protect it
from the rough jolting of their wagon over rocky roads, the clock had
been wrapped in a heavy feather bed. Consequently, it arrived at the
new wilderness home in fine condition. Even the delicate little
painted glass in the bottom section of the door had survived the
long journey. That painted glass, with colorful birds and their nest,
became a source of awe for the Culbertson children, as for years it
was the only thing of real beauty in an otherwise drab and colorless
home.

Over the years, the family enjoyed a good measure of prosperity, indeed
became "cornbread aristocrats"(plain and refined mountaineers).
They built a new home over and around their first one room cabin.
(There are many fine homes in the Buffalo Country which have within
them one or more rooms of log,covered over with planed lumber.)

The clock was left in the original room which had become the bedroom
of the Culbertsons. But as life is, the Culbertsons grew old, feeble
and gray. The clock ticked on faithfully marking the time and striking
out the hours for a couple whose fading eyes could scarcely see
the dial of the old cherished timepiece.

Then old Mrs.Culbertson died, leaving her aged husband alone in the
long used room. A daughter and her family moved in to look after
"grandad". But the time came when he too lay mortally ill on the huge
old corded bedstead which had also been brought by covered wagon from
the old house in Georgia.

During a long winter night the old man died. The daughter and a few
neighbors were in the room when he breathed his last. A custom in
those days was to stop the clock at the time someone died. The clock
kept silent, marking the time of the demise, until after the funeral.

A neighbor turned to the mantel and opened the door which held the
then faded, but still visible bird and nest picture, but the clock was
already stopping. There was no sound of ticking as the pendulum feebly
swung to stillness. It had died with it's owner.

Sometime after the funeral, an effort was made to start it again,
but it would not so much as make one tick-tock. Later it was taken to
Jasper to a clock tinker, but though he said he could not find nothing
wrong with it, he could never make it run. A Culbertson son then took
it to Harrison to an "expert" clock repairman but he too failed to
make it run.

Over the years, others tried but to no avail.
No one seems to know where it is now, but like so many heirlooms, it
may yet be up there around Murray, covered up by long years of endless
accumulations, in some old attic, barn or smokehouse.
Evelyn Flood
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