The Deagan Chimes

The Deagan Chimes. . , The chimes, now standing outside the Carriage House, were originally part of Col. Louis Watres’ estate Pen-y-Byrn in Scranton. Of the 483 chime sets manufactured by the Deagan Chime Factory, only six sets were produced for non-commercial use. Other sets on private estates included the DuPont’s Longwood Gardens, Scotty’s Castle in Death valley, and the Wrigley Estate on Catalina Island. Throughout the world today, there are only 96 working sets remaining., The chimes weigh over 10,000 pounds, and the longest ones are over 14 feet. When Watres built his mansion, he had a world war two Kimble pipe organ inside and Deagan chimes installed in a tower on the mansion grounds. The chimes were run by a clock mechanism in the home and rang out over the countryside every quarter hour. The chimes also had a keyboard, so as to make it possible to play appropriate tunes on special occasions, such as Christmas and the Fourth of July., In 1937, fire destroyed Watres’ imposing mansion of the East Mountain. The fire, visible from all over Scranton, occurred on a Sunday morning. Large numbers of citizens had been guests at Pen-y-Byrn at concerts, picnics and other large affairs and knew the house well. Many rushed to the fire and carried from the house antique furniture, rugs, paintings, sculpture and anything else they could save. The organ mechanism, on the third floor, created a great spectacle when it crashed. The clock mechanism, which controlled the chimes, was also destroyed; however, the 16-tone, 10.400-pound set of tubular chimes were in a tower some distance from the house. The romantic stone walls of the ruined castle were a safety hazard, and were dismantled. When Isabel Watres and her son, Arthur moved to Lacawac in 1948, the chimes went with them, becoming a storage problem for half a century., D.J. Roberts, a past Lacawac Trustee and owner of Lakeside Electric, learning about the chimes set a goal of installing them in a tower at Lacawac so that they could be played manually in celebration of Isabel Watres’ 100th birthday. Roberts along with John Tandy, a retired Navy officer and over 70 volunteers erected the chimes outside of the carriage house in 1995