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Welcome to our news and history blog!

Friday, January 1, 2016

THE NEW BELL Is 53 Inches in Diameter and Weighs 3,000 Pounds (1919

Source: Greenwich News and Graphic. May 23, 1919.


 


The bell now being installed in the tall tower of the Second Congregational church by workmen from the foundry of the Meneely Bell Co., Troy, N.Y., is of 3,000 pounds pattern, in the musical key of E-flat, and has a diameter at its mouth of 53 inches. The combined weight of the bell and its fixtures is 4,500. This bell replaces the one of similar weight, made in Maryland some years ago, which fractured while being rung last November 11 to celebrate the signing of the armistice.

The new bell is the gift of Charles N. Mead, who is of the sixth generation of the Mead family that has been identified with this church as deacons, Ebenezer Mead having settled in Greenwich in 1663.



The Second Congregational Church possesses one of the finest belfries in America, and there is some talk of adding at a later date nine bells to the present one so that the church may obsess a complete chime of ten bells. The church is said to be located on the highest point of land along the Atlantic coast between Maine and Florida, and the new bell will probably be higher above sea level than any other bells along the cost, except those in the Metropolitan tower in New York city.

The head rigger who is in charge of the work of placing the bell, will, next week, go to West Point to superintend the installation of a chime of bells which the Meneely Bell Co. has completed for Cadet Chapel as the gift of Mrs. James M. Lawton in memory of her father, the late Major-General Robert Anderson, who commanded Fort Sumpter at the outbreak of the Civil War. 

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