As long as I can remember (I’m 60+), I could always tell what time it was by counting the church bells. No matter what state I lived in, it was the same.
I know bells of the church were used to summon town folks in an emergency, but when and why did churches start keeping time?
Strictly speaking this is a better question for our Short Answers thread...but I'm a mod, so here you go. ;)
Church bells/the need to keep time is a development of monastic life. Traditional "cenobitic" monasticism--monks or nuns living in a community they don't leave--is centered around praying eight set times per day.
You might have heard or read of Prime, Vespers, Terce, and so forth? Those are so-called monastic hours: the times to pray the various stages of the Divine Office/Liturgy of the--wait for it--Hours.
Those names are actually how time is kept, period, until the spread of clocks in western Europe in the 14th century. That's when we start seeing royal records refer to meetings beginning at "of the clock" times instead of "at None" or such.