Liberty Bell
The Liberty Bell, previously called the State House Bell or Old State House Bell, is an iconic symbol of American independence located in Philadelphia. Originally placed in the steeple of Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell today is located across the street from Independence Hall in the Liberty Bell Center in Independence National Historical Park.
The bell was commissioned in 1752 by the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly from the London-based firm Lester and Pack, later renamed the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, and was cast with the lettering "Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof". The bell first cracked when rung after its arrival in Philadelphia, and was twice recast by local workmen John Pass and John Stow, whose surnames appear on the bell. In its early years, the bell was used to summon lawmakers to legislative sessions and to alert citizens to public meetings and proclamations. It is likely that the Liberty Bell was among the bells in Philadelphia to ring on July 8, 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was first read to the public, although no contemporary account of the ringing exists.
After American independence was secured, it fell into relative obscurity for some years. In the 1830s, the bell was adopted as a symbol by abolitionist societies, who dubbed it the "Liberty Bell". It acquired its distinctive large crack sometime in the first half of the 19th century—a widespread story claims it cracked while ringing after the death of Chief Justice John Marshall in 1835. In the late 19th and early 20th century, it was several times sent on journeys to large expositions, and was further damaged by souvenir hunters.
After World War II, Philadelphia allowed the National Park Service to take custody of the bell, while retaining ownership. The bell was used as a symbol of freedom during the Cold War and was a popular site for protests in the 1960s. It was moved from its longtime home in Independence Hall to a nearby glass pavilion on Independence National Historical Park in 1976, and then to the larger Liberty Bell Center adjacent to the pavilion in 2003. The bell has been featured on coins and stamps, and its name and image have been widely used by corporations.
History
Founding (1751–1753)
's city bell was used to alert the public to proclamations or civic danger since the city's 1682 founding. The original bell hung from a tree behind the Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall, was brought to the city by its founder, William Penn. In 1751, with a bell tower being built in the Pennsylvania State House, civic authorities sought a bell of better quality that could be heard at a greater distance in the rapidly expanding city. Isaac Norris, speaker of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, gave orders to the colony's London agent, Robert Charles, to obtain a "good Bell of about two thousands pound weight".The reference to Leviticus in Norris's directive reflects the contemporaneous practice of assigning unique qualities to bells that reflected their particular composition and casting.
Inscription
The inscription on the bell reads:Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof Lev. XXV. v X.
By Order of the ASSEMBLY of the Province of PENSYLVANIA for the State House in PhiladA
Pass and Stow
Philada
MDCCLIII
At the time, "Pensylvania" was an accepted alternative spelling for Pennsylvania. In 1787, the spelling was used by Alexander Hamilton, a Founding Father and the first U.S. Treasury Secretary, on the signature page of the Constitution of the United States.
Robert Charles ordered the bell from Thomas Lester of the London bell-founding firm of Lester and Pack, later known as the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, for £150 13s 8d, including freight to Philadelphia and insurance on its transport. It arrived in Philadelphia in August 1752.
Norris wrote to Charles that the bell was in good order, but they had not yet sounded it, since they were building a clock for the State House's tower. The bell was mounted on a stand to test the sound, and at the first strike of the clapper, the bell's rim cracked. The episode was used to good account in later stories of the bell; in 1893, President Benjamin Harrison, speaking as the bell passed through Indianapolis, said, "This old bell was made in England, but it had to be recast in America before it was attuned to proclaim the right of self-government and the equal rights of men." Philadelphia authorities tried to return it by ship, but the master of the vessel that had brought it was unable to take it on board.
Two local founders, John Pass and John Stow, offered to recast the bell. Though they were inexperienced in bell casting, Pass headed the Mount Holly Iron Foundry in neighboring Mount Holly, New Jersey, and came from Malta, which had a tradition of bell casting. Stow was only four years out of his apprenticeship as a brass founder. At Stow's foundry on 2nd Street in Philadelphia, the bell was broken into small pieces, melted down, and cast into a new bell. The two founders decided that the metal was too brittle, and augmented the bell metal by about ten percent, using copper. By March 1753, the bell was ready, and Norris reported that the lettering, which included the founders' names and the year, was even clearer on the new bell than on the old.
City officials in Philadelphia scheduled a public celebration with free food and drink for the testing of the recast bell. When the bell was struck, it did not break, but the sound produced was described by one hearer as similar to that of two coal scuttles being banged together. Mocked by the crowd, Pass and Stow hastily took the bell away to again recast it. In June 1753, the recasting was completed, and the sound was deemed satisfactory, though Norris indicated that he did not personally like it. The bell was hung in the steeple of the State House the same month.
The reason for the difficulties with the bell is not certain. The Whitechapel Foundry took the position that the bell was either damaged in transit or was broken by an inexperienced bell ringer, who incautiously sent the clapper flying against the rim, rather than the body of the bell.
In 1975, the Winterthur Museum in Delaware conducted an analysis of the metal in the bell, concluding that "a series of errors made in the construction, reconstruction, and second reconstruction of the Bell resulted in a brittle bell that barely missed being broken up for scrap". The Museum found a considerably higher level of tin in the Liberty Bell than in other Whitechapel bells of that era, and suggested that Whitechapel made an error in the alloy, perhaps by using scraps with a high level of tin to begin the melt instead of the usual pure copper.
The analysis concluded that, on the second recasting, instead of adding pure tin to the bell metal, Pass and Stow added cheap pewter with a high lead content, and incompletely mixed the new metal into the mold. The result was "an extremely brittle alloy which not only caused the Bell to fail in service but made it easy for early souvenir collectors to knock off substantial trophies from the rim".
American Revolution
Dissatisfied with the bell, Norris instructed Charles to order a second one, and see if Lester and Pack would take back the first bell and credit the value of the metal towards the bill. In 1754, the Assembly decided to keep both bells; the new one was attached to the tower clock while the old bell was, by vote of the Assembly, devoted "to such Uses as this House may hereafter appoint." The Pass and Stow bell was used to summon the Assembly.On October 16, 1755, in one of the earliest documented mentions of the bell's use, Benjamin Franklin wrote Catherine Ray a letter, which stated: "Adieu. The Bell rings, and I must go among the Grave ones, and talk Politiks."
The bell was rung in 1760 to mark the accession of George III to the throne.
In the early 1760s, the Assembly allowed a local church to use the State House for services and the bell to summon worshipers, while the church's building was being constructed. The bell was also used to summon people to public meetings, and in 1772, a group of citizens complained to the Assembly that the bell was being rung too frequently.
Despite the legend that the Liberty Bell rang following the unanimous adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, there is no evidence to support that, and it is unlikely since the first public readings of the Declaration of Independence were not until four days later, on July 8, 1776. There is historical documentation that when the Declaration was read publicly in Philadelphia, bells around the city were rung in commemoration. While the Liberty Bell is not specifically referenced, most historical authorities agree that it was likely among the bells that rang that day. However, there is some chance that the poor condition of the State House bell tower prevented the bell from ringing. According to John C. Paige, who wrote a historical study of the Liberty Bell for the National Park Service, "We do not know whether or not the steeple was still strong enough to permit the State House bell to ring on this day. If it could possibly be rung, we can assume it was. Whether or not it did, it has come to symbolize all of the bells throughout the United States which proclaimed Independence." If the Liberty Bell was rung, it was most likely rung by Andrew McNair, the doorkeeper to the Assembly and the Continental Congress, who was responsible for the bell's ringing. Bells were also rung to celebrate the first anniversary of Independence on July 4, 1777.