Gorham’s restored town clock is ticking in its original home in the tower at the First Parish Congregational Church.

A gift to the town in 1868, the clock was removed from the church steeple in September of 2006 for repairs after it stopped. Friday, installation of the clock was completed 80 feet below its original perch in the steeple unprotected from the elements.

It is now in the base of the tower in a former organ loft above the balcony and visible in the church sanctuary. Rev. David Butler, First Parish pastor, said Monday the clock would be dedicated in January when the clock becomes available for public view.

Town Councilor Burleigh Loveitt, who served as the project chairman, estimated the total cost of the project, including retrofitting the church, at about $60,000.

“We don’t have all the bills yet,” said Loveitt, noting that no tax money was used. All the money was donated.

The town owns the clock but it had always been housed in the church. The church owns the clock faces, which are part of the steeple. In an agreement with the town, the church now leases the clock for $1 a year.

The clock was a gift to the people of Gorham 140 years ago by Toppan Robie, a prominent Gorham resident at the time. It cost $500.

To pay for restoration, the town council initially set aside $75,000 in a special fund. But opposition raised the issue of the separation of church and state, if the clock were returned to the church after spending taxpayer’s money on repairs.

The issue was resolved when private donors stepped forward. Butler said John and Rose Phinney, parents of Town Councilor Mike Phinney, donated in excess of $50,000 for restoration and reinstallation of the clock, which was restored by Balzer’s Family Clock Works in Freeport.

“It’s quite remarkable,” Butler said about the restoration. “It looks better than we thought it would.”

Loveitt also praised Village Builders, which remodeled space to house the clock, and church member Clyde Grant, who served as clerk of the reinstallation project.

A shaft up through the church now controls the same old hands on the clock’s four faces high above the street on the steeple.

Butler said Grant laid out the path for the new mechanisms engineered by Balzer’s. No longer does someone have to climb wooden stairs up through the tower to wind the clock each week with a hand crank. It’s now wound automatically, and the clock rings the church’s Paul Revere bell on the hour as in olden times.

The Rev. David Butler says he’s pleased with the restoration work on the church’s historic clock.