The harbor guide that lists a clock tower I can't find

I am looking at a website called Portsmouth Trips that describes a Victorian clock tower on the harbor's south pier. The entry gives its height as forty-two feet, notes the weathervane in the shape of a schooner, and mentions that the clock face stopped at 3:17 in 1947 and was never repaired.

I have been to that pier eleven times. I have four rolls of film from different visits. I spread the contact sheets across the table and go frame by frame. There are pylons, a bait shop with yellow trim, the ferry dock, two benches facing the water. No clock tower.

The website is not elaborate. It lists walking routes, tide tables, a few historical notes. The clock tower appears in the landmarks section between the customs house and the old sail loft. The description is specific in a way that feels like memory: "The tower's brickwork shows repairs from the 1938 hurricane, lighter mortar in a diagonal band across the north face."

What I check

I pull out a 1956 postcard I bought at an estate sale last year, the one with the harbor view from the breakwater. The south pier is visible in the middle distance. I hold it under the desk lamp. No tower.

I try the library's online archive. The 1949 aerial survey, the 1962 commercial directory with its harbor map, three different postcards from the 1970s. I search "clock tower portsmouth" and find the one everyone knows, the inland one near the square. Nothing on the waterfront.

The website does not look old. The layout is plain, the font is the same as a hundred small-town visitor guides. There is no date on the page. I refresh it twice to make sure the text stays the same.

The feeling this produces

It is not quite like discovering an error. An error would feel simpler. This feels like standing in a room where the furniture has been rearranged while I was out, except I am the only one who notices the chair has moved.

I consider that I am mixing up two places, but I know the pier. I know the angle of the bait shop roof and the number of pylons and the way the light sits on the water at evening. I have never seen a forty-two-foot clock tower with a schooner weathervane.

The description remains on the site. I do not write to correct it. I keep the page open in a browser tab and check it some mornings to see if the clock tower is still there, stopped at 3:17, waiting on a pier I know by heart.

— w.