Page 93 - Dragon Flood

orders to the colony's London agent, Robert Charles, to obtain a "good Bell of about two
thousands pound weight."

We hope and rely on thy care and assistance in this affair and that thou wilt procure and
forward it by the first good oppo as our workmen inform us it will be much less trouble
to hang the Bell before their Scaffolds are struck from the Building where we intend to
place it which will not be done 'till the end of next Summer or beginning of the Fall. Let the
bell be cast by the best workmen & examined carefully before it is Shipped with the
following words well shaped around it vizt. By Order of the Assembly of the Province [sic]
of Pensylvania [sic] for the State house in the City of Philada 1752 and Underneath
Proclaim Liberty thro' all the Land to all the Inhabitants thereof.-Levit. XXV. 10...

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, as 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...

Philadelphia authorities tried to return it by ship, but the master of the vessel which 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 had headed the Mount Holly Iron Foundry in
neighboring New Jersey and came from Malta, which had a tradition of bell casting.
Stow, on the other hand, was only four years out of his apprenticeship as a brass founder.
At Stow's foundry on Second Street, 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. The bell was ready in March
1753, 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 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 like two coal scuttles being
banged together. Mocked by the crowd, Pass and Stow hastily took the bell
away and again recast it. When the fruit of the two founders' renewed efforts was
brought forth in June 1753, 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...

It is uncertain how the bell came to be cracked; the damage occurred sometime between
1817 and 1846. The bell is mentioned in a number of newspaper articles during that time;
no mention of a crack can be found until 1846. In fact, in 1837, the bell was depicted in an
anti-slavery publication—uncracked. In February 1846 Public Ledger reported that the
bell had been rung on February 23, 1846 in celebration of Washington's Birthday (as
February 22 fell on a Sunday, the celebration occurred the next day), and also reported
that the bell had long been cracked, but had been "put in order" by having the sides of the
crack filed. The paper reported that around noon, it was discovered that the ringing had