The Delaware County Historical Society graciously contributes a monthly history column to Delaware Source, exploring the people, places and moments that shaped our community.
The Ancients in Ohio were timekeepers on a grand scale.
The World Heritage Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks in Licking, Ross, and Warren counties are our window on a world of brilliant engineering, cosmology, and community. Many of these geometric shapes there are aligned with the lunar cycle, or the sun.
According to the Smithsonian’s American Indian magazine (Winter 2025/Spring 2026):
These Indigenous architects created in what is now Ohio the only set of ancient monuments on Earth that capture the lunar cycle, both comprehensively and at multiple locations. That feat of genius required generations of observation and record keeping. Equally brilliant were their geometric layout skills, astonishingly exact even at vast scales. All this geometry and astronomy established the cosmic orders as the setting for their civic and ceremonial life. Building with Mother Earth, they marked their knowledge of cyclical time — both the sun’s yearly repetitions and the moon’s generational ones. – John Hancock
Today in Delaware County we can experience celestial timekeeping on a smaller scale at the Perkins Observatory, where they hold a summer “Celebration of the Sun” in July to teach visitors about solar astronomy.
A sculpture at Ohio Wesleyan University (temporarily not on view) called Astrolabe Rotunda depicts an astrolabe – a device used by ancient Egyptians and Greeks in time telling and navigation, atop a rotunda featuring the 12 astrological symbols of the year and the four compass points (the latitude of central Ohio was used to determine the angle of the axis of the astrolabe).
Fast forward to the early 1800s when Euro-Americans settled Delaware County: the sun and moon in our natural world still govern time – the “continuous, forward flow of existence.”
About the Author: Becky Sutherland Cornett is a retired health care administrator, independent researcher and public historian with decades of publishing experience. She is a life member of the Delaware County Historical Society, a member of the Ohio History Connection’s Conestoga Society, the American Association of State and Local History (AASLH), the Lincoln Forum, and the Organization of American Historians (OAH). Since 2020, Cornett has focused on presenting, teaching, and writing about local and Ohio history topics.
Over the centuries and even recent decades, our efforts have been largely to apply technology to perhaps “tame” time.
Before the railroads agreed to establish four time zones in 1883 (because the more than 144 localized time zones across the country resulted in almost impossible logistics and crashes), timekeeping was very much a local challenge. Communities followed local solar time – every town set its own clock according to when the sun reached “high noon” – which differed according to each village’s longitude.
After an intense period of lobbying by railroad officials, local governments agreed to common time zones. The “day of two noons” was November 18, the day clocks were synchronized (by the Naval Observatory sending a telegraph signal to the railroad companies). Many city clocks struck noon twice: once at the previous local time, and once at the new standard time.
Although many communities adopted the new time immediately, some people objected, saying they didn’t want to be controlled by the railroad companies. It was not until 1918 that Congress passed the Standard Time Act, making standard time federal law.
Even after household clocks (grandfather clocks, mantel clocks) and personal timepieces (pocket watches and wristwatches) became mass-produced in the late 1800s, personal devices had to be set by clocks or other signals in communities. Rural areas were different from towns in the availability of public resources.
Examples of historic community timekeeping methods, some of which are still used on farms, and in towns and cities today, even if we do not depend on them:
Old Farmer’s Almanac: Since 1792, a trusted source for long range weather forecasts, moon phases, full moon dates and times, sunrise and sunset, planting calendars, gardening tips, recipes and a host of other information.
Town clocks: Old Delaware City Hall, opened in 1882, had a 92 foot clock tower (today there are town clocks at City Hall and St. Mary’s Catholic Church). Sunbury’s historic Town Hall has a town clock. Libraries and post offices had clocks; the Strand Theater in Delaware has a prominent clock right in the movie space.
General stores: The store’s wall clock or the proprietor’s personal pocket watch established the standard time that locals used for daily activities. Some stores had regulator clocks.
Church bells and school bells: The Blue Church near Sunbury was a center of community life; it’s bell is part of a memorial. School bells in most locales were important timekeepers to start and end school.
Farm dinner bells: See “The Dinner Bell is Calling” by Robin Mayes for an excellent account of these essential tools of the past.
Factory whistles: Many people in Sunbury remember Nestle’s factory whistle that blew at 8 a.m., noon, 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. The 5 p.m. whistle signaled “going home” time – not just for workers, but adults and children throughout the town knew it was time to go home for dinner.
How do we know what time it is today? We look at our smartphones, smartwatch, or other electronic device – it seems easy to us, but getting the signal to our devices is the result of a highly complex process.
NIST -the National Institute of Standards and Technology says:
Time is probably the most measured quantity on Earth. It helps organize and coordinate our lives. Scientists use time to measure and understand countless features of our world.
Yet we cannot measure time directly. Instead, we measure time intervals — the durations separating two events. “Time” is the accumulation of these intervals.
At first glance, telling time seems simple: You glance at your watch or phone, and there’s the time. But behind this veneer of simplicity is an intricate global timekeeping effort involving hundreds of sophisticated atomic clocks operated by scientists located around the world.
Each of us depends on a global network of atomic clocks that are continuously being measured, compared and synced to each other, and that are tuned to even purer and more precise timing tones produced by some of the best clocks ever made.
Take a tour around the county and region to see, experience, and discuss some of the history of timekeeping right here.
Visit the World Heritage sites, experience “high noon” and see if you can determine the rest of your day according to the sun’s position.
Find a sundial; go to a museum – or grandparents’ house – to see a grandfather clock or mantel clock.
Listen to church bells and remember how they were central to community life.
Look at copies of the Old Farmer’s Almanac (still sold today).
Call the Naval Observatory’s Time Announcer at 202-762-1401 for Eastern Time and UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). Millions of people still call that number every year.
Time is truly the essence of our lives, from time immemorial.
