1823 bell from Paul Revere Foundry in Boston to help mark citizenship ceremony

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JERREY ROBERTS

A bell made by the Paul Revere foundry in Boston that is displayed in the Hampshire County Courthouse will be rung at a citizenship ceremony Saturday.

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A detail from John Singleton Copley's 1768 portrait of Paul Revere.

NORTHAMPTON - Brought out only for special occasions, a bell forged in the shop of a Revolutionary War hero will chime Saturday for a group of newly minted Americans.

Symbolism in the Independence Day ceremony will be rich, as organizer Laurie Millman of the Center for New Americans described it.

First an expected 12 or 13 people will take the oath of allegiance.

Then, after local singer Evelyn Harris performs "God Bless America," freedom will ring, literally, from the bell, which will be struck once for each of the new citizens.

Cast in the Boston foundry of Paul Revere, the iron bell came to Northampton in 1823.

The County of Hampshire bought the bell from Joseph Revere, Paul's son and business partner, for $167.60. The cost broke down like this: 40 cents a pound for the 404-pound bell and 15-pound tongue, or clapper.

It hung in Northampton's third courthouse, which was demolished in 1886 to make way for the granite structure fronting Main Street known today as the old courthouse.

In a 1988 speech, former judge W. Michael Ryan described the bell's role this way:

"The bell was used to call judges, jurors, witnesses, lawyers and spectators to each session of the court, in formal processions led by Hampshire County High Sheriff Henry A. Longley, a hero of the Civil War."

Gazette archives say the bell went missing after the older courthouse was torn down, but that it re-emerged "disguised as the Liberty Bell" on a float for Northampton's 250th birthday in 1904. Another archive entry puts the bell in the care of local Boy Scouts around the 1950s.

Today, the bell sits in the lobby of the old courthouse.

Its first public appearance after 1904 was in 1987, when Hampshire County Commission staffers held a spontaneous Constitution Day celebration. Employees took turns ringing the bell using the gavel of County Commissioner Patricia Lee Lewis.

It was also used on New Year's Eve in 1998, when the commission became the Hampshire Council of Governments, said administrator Pennington Geis.

These days the bell doesn't see much ceremony, but is kept in the old courthouse vestibule where anyone can admire it.

"It's fun when little kids come by," Geis said. "They can look under it and tap on it - and make noise."

Fourteen years ago, Geis had a chance encounter with an expert visiting the bell. According to notes she made at the time, David Bathgate of West Boylston offered many details on how the bell was made.

Bathgate couldn't be reached for comment.

He said the bell is made of iron with a very high phosphorous content. The phosphorous gives the bell a good sound but weakens the iron, Bathgate told Geis.

The Reveres molded their bells around mounds of sand on brick bases, Bathgate said. This process created irregular ridges inside the bell that were likely filed down after the metal hardened, he said.

Although it hasn't developed any cracks, the bell today is considered fragile and should only be rung gently, Geis said.

Bathgate recommended a number of options for testing the bell's integrity, including X-rays and ultrasound, but Geis said no tests were ever done.

In 1918 another expert, Arthur Nichols, examined the bell, proclaiming it one of only two still in existence. Since then several others have emerged, including at least one in the Pioneer Valley. A list of registered Revere bells is available online at home.swbell.net/csz_stl/towerbells/RevereFoundry.html.

One bell was discovered in 1951 in the steeple of the First Baptist Church of Amherst, by a custodian who noticed the Revere inscription, according to a Gazette archive entry.

Another bell hung in the belfry of Northampton's fourth First Congregational Church, which burned down in 1876. The 175-pound bell survived the blaze, but was melted down to create smaller bells.

Paul Revere himself, in 1800, is believed to have transported a bell to Greenfield. That bell went on to be hung in the town's fire station in 1936. At some point a crack developed in the bell, and it was melted down and recast. Researcher Peter Miller determined this diminished its historical value, according to an archive entry in The Recorder from 1991.

James F. Lowe can be reached at jlowe@gazettenet.com.