Yesteryears:Frb 22, 2000 Vol 9 No 37
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
'Tuesday, '}e6rua1Y 22, 2000 Section of'Ifie Sa[em 9\[fws • • s c ii 1 1 By Lois Firestone competed, their bells received o the people of the coun- top prizes. The 13-bell chime try' s villages and small 1 they made for display in Ma Ttowns in the early years, chinery Hall at the 1876 Cen bell was an integral part of tennial Exhibition in Philadel their lives. Its peal called them to phia was praised for its unri sociable happenings, to worship valed clarity and mellow tone. •services, to town meetings, to The foundry made thousands •fairs and bazaars, as well as to of bells, some weighing as the serious, and more often than much as 10,000 pounds. They not dangerous, aspect of their were manufactured for church everyday living, home and work es, courthouses, ships, schools accidents, or fire or flood alerts. and town halls. • A landmark for years in the Salem's city hall bell was city of Salem was the city hall made by this outstanding along Main Street, a frame foundry - the bill of sale was building which housed city of- found in an old desk drawer by fices - the mayor's and clerk's Minnie Koenreich and pre . offices on the second floor, and served, later to be donated to ,the fire and police departments the Salem Historical Society. on the first floor. But the build- One of the company's most ing was often referred to as the unusual castings was the Men Fanueil Hall of the West. Like ta.I Health Bell made on April the original Fanueil Hall in 13, 1953. The 500-pound bell Boston, the town hall was the was made from chains and scene of numerous public re- shackles that once held patients form meetings on anti-slavery, in mental hospitals throughout prohibition and women's the country. rights. These cruel devices were · The bell on top of the city hall housed in the lobby of the Men was a landmark, too, the largest tal Health Association head The bell which served the city of in town when it was placed on quarters until enough was col Salem for 70 years from its post af the new clock tower in 1882. lected to be melted down. the peak of the old City Hall, sits When the city hall was built Maryland's governor dropped today at the entrance to Centenni al Park (above). The bell's former that year, there were nine prin- the last piece of metal, a pair of home in the clock tower of the cipal bell foundries making brass shackles, into the crucible building is at the right. The build bells for cities and towns. They at the Mcshane foundry when ing which had stood along the included Hobart in Abington, the bell was cast. Inscribed on city's main street for 105 years was Mass., Fulton in nearby Pitts- the bell: "Cast from Shackles tom down in 1952 after it was con .burgh, Meneely Brothers, which Bound Them, This Bell demned as a fire hazard. Below ;William Blake, and Jones and Shall Ring Out Hope for The are pictured the various compo :Co. all in Troy, N. Y., Stukstede See Bell page 4 nent s of a bell. ,and Brothers in St. Louis, Buck-~--------- · ·· . · crown.si.epfe;. :eye Bell Foundry in Cincinnati, Bevins Brothers in East Hamp- ~Ca.:#0.l:lS, JL" __ crowP-£ ton, Conn. and the MC:Shane' · ; ,. :Bell Foundry in Baltimore. i .·· .. ·. l , ...... _! •1 Henry McShane had arrived if.he.: . { "\.'Ii -..--;;..'il~~?J::.-.r ,...1ef:;.<~~~)':.~;.· in Baltimore from Ireland in ·· ,S~i::k ----1.,. l1856 eager to make a living. · . · ~ · casting plumbing fixtures int the small brass foundry he 'opened in tJ:le city. He knew nothing about the manufacture of bells until he became friend ly with a German immigrant, John Schmidt. Schmidt was an expert in the craft and Mc Shane had a good business I sense. Together their foundry made some of the finest bells in 1 the world. Awards came quick- --··f/j~;f'/;r~ ly; whenever or wherever they _______________ ._._..__.._,_. _____ ~ .._,; ~·"""" ~~-.-" I esteryears '[uesaay, Je6ruary 22, 2000 Lore of Re 1ver• ns1• ere apt. Wyllys Lyman seum curator, a couple of ar watched blood trickle be chaeology students and a histo tween his fingers as he rian who had never before C wielded a metal detector. Five choked on dusty air. Gathering ammunition and courage, he days a week, they jump over ditches and dodge cactus in the loaded his pistol and peered Caprock Canyons. Moments af around the circled wagons. ter one of them chops off a rat Arrows whizzed past his tlesnake's head with a shovel, head, confirming his fear: Ly another locates a treasure trove man and his men were sur of artifacts - buttons, arrow rounded by Comanches. Were heads, gun cartridges. Cheers the Indians too smart to waste erupt as the team grabs flags, ammunition on men already shovels and a map to mark a dead? The Comanches under site of combat. stood how easily the merciless Every site bolsters Allinger' s Texas plains could conquer the belief that historians mistakenly soldiers. If trapped, Lyman's accepted soldiers' accounts that men would surely die in terrain the Indians were the aggressors so tough that one soldier de and that the United States scribed it as "not only ... a bad merely wanted to push the In November 26, 1922 to February 12, 2000 place to die, it wasn't even a dians onto Oklahoma reserva good place to be buried." tion territory. Allinger suspects Horse flies and thorn bushes that the Indians knew they tore at Lyman's resolve. After a were outmatched. They battled These photos of cartoonist Charles Schulz are seen on the front and back covers of his memorial service pro few days, he and his men re the soldiers only long enough gram Monday at the Luther Burbank Center For The Arts in Santa Rosa, Calif. Thousands were on hand to sorted to drinking the water out to allow their families to escape pay last respects to the legendary creator of the 'Peanuts' cartoon strip, who died Feb 12. of tomato cans. When all the Panhandle. After the Indian seemed lost, the soldiers raid, military units gathered Post. thickness of the lip. As many as charged their enemies - and from Kansas, Oklahoma, New Inscribed on the bell are the five notes are produced by the lived. But not because they de Mexico and Texas in February -'~~G~Bll ~lj,r.,~:;, ···~,~ e "·V.- words: "Bequeathed to the different parts of the bell, de- feated the Indians. The Co "·~t@ Cont'd from page 1 ~~;x!Y 1874. "The Indians knew the • ;:,,~ . .. • v _,.)/:Jl Salem Baptist Church by Sarah :rending on the thickness and manches had disappeared with canyons like the backs of their ~~~C>- Tift, 1879 - "Let Him that shape. out a trace. hands, while the soldiers had Heareth, Say Come." A disas- Early bell makers were dis- Over the last several months, Mentally Ill and Victory Over only the vaguest idea of where trous fire in 1947 left the people mayed to find that constant archaeologist Patricia Mercado they were," Allinger says. Mental Illness." of the church homeless for striking by the clapper caused Allinger and her team have But the soldiers apparently Another unique bell cast by months, holding worship in the the bells to crack. Because of pieced together that scenario - had high-powered weapons: McShane and Schmidt was high school auditorium for this, many bells had to be melt- and more battles in the last war the Perrot Rifle, which histori made for the Salem First Baptist months. The bell was damaged ed down and recast because of to drive Indians from the Texas ans call the "grenade launcher Church in the late 1870s. Ac in the blaze, but was retrieved the problem due to thte walls Panhandle than any researchers of the late 1800s" - and at least cording to Dale E. Shaffer's re and repaired and :rlaced in the being the same thickness from in the last 50 years. two Gatling guns, history's first search on town bells, Sarah Tift belfry of the new church at 1290 the top ring to the lip's edge. Allinger, who works for the rapid-fire, bunker-style collected silver from fellow E. State St. They added a metal ring to the Texas Historical Co.mmission, weapon. Bells existed as far back as lipe which strengthened the bell reconstructed Lyman's experi members and sent it to the 2697 BC. but it wouldn't be un- where the clapper made con- ence by meshing other accounts foundry. It was melted down til the sixth or seventh century tact. They discovered this im- and her findings: the recovered Arbaugh-Pearce and cast into a bell which was that the western world began proved the tone. remains of wagons, bloody ar ee»it;efl placed in the belfry of the casting them. Bells can be tolled in various rowheads, tomato cans and bul church building at the corner of j'° Funeral Every part of a bell has a ways. "Clocking" a bell consists let casings. G Home East State Street and Lincoln Av name (see illustration on page of letting it hang motionless About two years ago, 1 ). These include the cannons and pulling the clapper against Allinger began collecting arti RAY J. GREENISEN enue, today the home of the 332-4401 OWNER Salem Chamber of Commerce or ear, crown staple, crown, the inside of the bell with a facts and documenting the Red and the local American Legion shoulder, waste or barrel, hip, rope.