You would think that a church would have plans for a bell when it was being built but that wasn’t the case at St. Andrew’s. What we now call the bell tower was designed as a battlement tower, since it was modeled after a church in England. Our bell didn’t come to much later. I am not sure whether it was because there wasn’t money in the budget for it or no one saw a need for one but St. Andrew’s didn’t have a bell until October 12, 1975.
Father Ron Lynch saw a need and asked a long time member of St. Andrew’s to consider purchasing one for the church. Edith Jones stepped forward and donated a little over $4000.00 for the purchase of a bell. I’ve read different stories on now the bell was obtained, the first said it was purchased from a church in Rhode Island and shipped to the McShane Bell Foundry to be reconditioned. After checking with the historian of that church, we found no records of that happening. What I did find were invoices from the McShane Bell Foundry to Mrs. Edith Jones and a letter confirming a delivery date. This told me that our bell was made to order for St. Andrew’s.
The McShane Bell Foundry was started in 1856 in Baltimore, Maryland. Since that time they have made hundreds of thousands of bells of every size for Cathedrals, Churches, Municipal Buildings, Universities and schools all over the world. If you are a fan of the show Dirty Jobs starring Mike Rowe you may have seen the one at the McShane Foundry. I found it interesting to learn that they are the only bell foundry that uses fresh horse manure in their molding sand. They said that it helps to make the ring tone of their bells better. What they made for us was a 29 inch 500 pound bell, it is installed with a normal clapper that hits the side of bell when the bell is moved, that is what you hear on Sunday mornings. It also has a tolling hammer that will strike the bell once every time the rope is pulled. We use this sometimes at funerals, ringing the bell one time for each year that person was alive. It is also rung 33 times at 3 pm on Good Friday (can you guess why?) and at other times for special events and remembrances. I started ringing the bell on Good Friday several years ago when I became a verger as part of the verger’s vigil. This is something vergers all over the world do to honor Jesus Christ.
Now we have a problem, we have a 500 pound bell sitting in the front lawn of the church and it has to be in a small room three stories up from where it is. It took the men of the church about six months to figure out how to do this. I’m sure it also took a lot of nagging from the church ladies to get it done that soon. They got the area prepped by cutting a hole big enough for the bell to fit through the ceiling of the narthex, the floor of the second story and another in the third story. Then they attached a heavy strap to a beam near the ceiling of the bell room and a large block and tackle to that. After rolling the bell up six steps and into the narthex they tied the ropes onto the bell and started pulling. They got the bell to the top and moved it onto the beams that they had prepared. Pretty simple when you think about it. Now when you are in the narthex and look up and see a wood panel in the ceiling, you will know why it is there.