Before St. Matthew’s had a steeple, it called worshippers with a bell hung from a fig tree.

The Timekeeper of the East

How a steeple and its clock ordered the days of eastern Nassau
For the first years of its life, the oldest church in the Bahamas had no steeple at all. When St. Matthew’s opened its doors on 18 July 1802, the building was complete but its tower was not — and so the parish did what parishes have always done when they need to call the faithful and have nothing grand to call them with. They hung a bell from a fig tree in the churchyard. From that humble beginning grew the most useful landmark in the eastern district: a steeple whose clock would, for the better part of a century, tell the whole east of the island when to wake, when to work, and when to pray. This is the story of how a church became a clock.

A Bell on a Fig Tree
The earliest parish had a character all its own, and a Nassau Guardian columnist looking back in 1900 preserved a teasing rhyme about it: the young church had a parson with a cork leg — Father Groombridge had lost his in the Navy — a sexton with a wooden arm, and, since there was as yet no steeple, a bell that hung from a fig tree in the yard. It is an image worth holding onto: the oldest church in the country beginning its life not with bronze and stone but with a bell swinging from a branch, calling a scattered eastern congregation in from the new houses along the shore.
The fig tree did not have to serve for long.

The Steeple Rises
In 1807 — by the most detailed parish account — the builders John Arthur and James White raised the octagonal steeple at the western end of the church, and with it St. Matthew’s gained the landmark by which all of eastern Nassau would come to know it. The tower was a thing of use as well as beauty: the chamber at its base was first put to service as a depository for books, a quiet foreshadowing, perhaps, of the way this parish’s stones kept turning toward learning. For generations it was the only church steeple in the whole town.
There is an honest puzzle in the dates, and the committee should know of it. The fullest parish sources place the steeple at 1807; several other published accounts — and a number of photographic captions — give 1816, the year most often attached to the clock. The likeliest reconciliation is the simplest: that the steeple rose first, in 1807, and the clock was added to it some years later, around 1816. But this is exactly the kind of detail that the commemorative volume ought to settle properly, against Finlayson and the vestry records, rather than repeat from memory.

The Clock That Kept the Town
Whenever precisely it arrived, the clock changed everything. Long before wristwatches were common and long before any other reliable public timepiece stood in Nassau, the clock of St. Matthew’s chimed every quarter hour — and its chime carried. By the parish’s own account it could be heard as far away as Montagu, clear across the eastern district to the old fort on the shore. In an age when most people had no way to know the hour but the sun, that was no small thing. The clock told the east of the island when to rise, when to eat, and when to come to church. It was, in the most literal sense, the timekeeper of the east.
Consider what that meant for ordinary life. A carpenter on Shirley Street, a fisherman mending nets near Montagu, a household keeping the rhythm of meals and prayers — all of them ordered their day by the same quarter-hour chime drifting out from the church tower. The bell that had once hung from a fig tree had become the heartbeat of a whole quarter of the town. The church did not merely stand at the centre of the eastern district’s spiritual life; through its clock it quietly governed the district’s daily life as well.

The Landmark That Outlasted the Storm
The steeple has proved as durable as the faith that raised it. When the great hurricane of 26 September 1929 passed directly over New Providence, with winds estimated near 140 miles an hour over four terrible hours, the churches of the town suffered severely and St. Matthew’s was wounded. Yet the restoration completed by 1931 left the steeple standing as it was built. To this day, by the parish’s account, the tower remains essentially as Arthur and White raised it — and generations of parishioners returning home along East Bay Street have looked up for it and found it, the same silhouette their grandparents looked for, the same one that has marked the eastern sky for over two centuries.

On the Road to 225
From a bell on a fig tree, to a steeple raised by two named builders, to a clock whose chimes ordered the hours of an entire district, to a landmark that rode out the worst storm in living memory and still stands — the tower of St. Matthew’s is the part of the church that has spoken most often, and most widely, to the most people. Most of them never came inside; they only heard the quarter-hour bell and knew, by it, what time it was and Whose time it was. As the parish walks its pilgrim year toward the great day of thanksgiving on Sunday, 18 July 2027, the old clock keeps its faithful count — as it has counted out the generations, rooted in Christ, alive in the Spirit, and calling all who can hear it home.
Sources and Notes
This companion article draws chiefly on the sources assembled for “The Cathedral in the East.” The points below should be confirmed against Iris E. Finlayson’s A History of St. Matthew’s Anglican Church (1988) and the vestry records before publication.
—
The bell on the fig tree, the cork leg, and the wooden arm. From the Nassau Guardian column “Notes From The Diary of An Old Bahamian” (1900), recalling the early parish; preserved via the Nassau Guardian feature “The Cathedral in the East” (24 November 2011), a feature interview with church historian Iris Finlayson.
—
The steeple builders and the 1807 date. The Nassau Guardian feature (2011), drawing on Finlayson, attributes the octagonal steeple to builders John Arthur and James White in 1807, separate from the church’s original building cost. The Find a Grave cemetery-history page records the octagonal steeple at the west end, its base used as a book depository and states it “remains as built.”
—
The 1807 vs. 1816 discrepancy. Wikipedia gives the steeple date as “1807 or 1816,” reflecting the difference between Finlayson and the Nassau Guardian (2011) on one hand and other published accounts on the other. A widely circulated stock-photo caption and an Encircle Photos image caption both date the steeple and clock to 1816. Recommendation: the most probable reading is that the steeple rose in 1807 and the clock was added around 1816; verify against Finlayson (1988) and the vestry minutes before asserting either date in print.
—
The clock as public timepiece. The Nassau Guardian feature (2011) records the clock chiming every quarter hour, audible as far as Montagu, and serving as one of the only reliable public timepieces in Nassau — telling the east of the island when to rise, eat, and come to church. The 1816 dating of the clock also appears in photographic captions noting it was “for many years the only reliable source of time on the island.”
—
The 1929 hurricane and the surviving steeple. For the storm of 26 September 1929 (winds near 140 mph, four-hour eye passage, severe damage to the town’s churches) and the restoration completed by 1931, see the Hurricane City Nassau record (drawing on Wayne Neely), the UWI EKACDM disaster archive, and the St. Matthew’s parish website. The claim that the steeple “remains as built” is from the Find a Grave cemetery history; the broader caution about the parish website’s “original wooden structure” account (which conflicts with the documented stone construction) is discussed in the notes to “The Cathedral in the East” and applies here as well.
Prepared for the 225th Anniversary Committee of St. Matthew’s Anglican Church, Nassau · “On The Road to 225” · Third of three companion articles, with “The Cathedral in the East” and “The Road Itself” · Draft for review — historical details to be verified against Finlayson (1988), the Bahamas National Archives, and parish records before publication