The Story of a Symbol
The Liberty Bell is the most venerated symbol of patriotism in the United States; its fame as an emblem of liberty is worldwide. In the affections of the American people today it overshadows even Independence Hall, although veneration for the latter began much earlier. Its history, a combination of facts and folklore, has firmly established the Liberty Bell as the tangible image of political freedom. To understand this unique position of the bell, one must go beyond authenticated history (for the bell is rarely mentioned in early records) and study the folklore which has grown up.
The known facts about the Liberty Bell can be quickly told. Properly, the story starts on November 1, 1751, when the superintendents of the State House of the Province of Pennsylvania (now Independence Hall) ordered a “bell of about two thousand pounds weight” for use in that building. They stipulated that the bell should have cast around its crown the Old Testament quotation, “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Most likely, this phrase was chosen in commemoration of William Penn’s Charter of Privileges issued 50 years earlier.
Thomas Lester’s foundry at Whitechapel, in London, was the scene of casting the bell. Soon after its arrival in Philadelphia, in August 1752, the brand new bell was cracked “by a stroke of the clapper without any other viollence as it was hung up to try the sound.” At this juncture, those now famous “two ingenious workmen of Philadelphia,” Pass and Stow, undertook to recast the cracked bell. After at least one recorded failure to produce an instrument of pleasing tone, their efforts were successful, and, in 1753, the bell began its period of service, summoning the legislators to the Assembly and opening the courts of justice in the State House.
Earliest known representation of the Liberty Bell. From the anti-slavery booklet, The Liberty Bell, published by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair, Boston, 1839. Courtesy Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
With the threat of British occupation of Philadelphia in 1777, the State House bell and other bells were hastily moved from the City to prevent their falling into British hands and being made into cannon. Taken to Allentown, the bell remained hidden under the floor of the Zion Reformed Church for almost a year. In the summer of 1778, upon the withdrawal of the British, it was deemed safe to return the bells to Philadelphia.
By 1773, the State House steeple had become so dangerously weakened that it was removed in 1781 and the bell lowered into the brick tower. Some 50 years later, in 1828, when the wooden steeple was rebuilt, a new and larger bell was acquired. The old bell, almost forgotten, probably remained in the tower. The new one was obtained, perhaps, because the original had either cracked or had shown indications of cracking. Traditionally, the fracture occurred while the bell was being tolled during the funeral procession of Chief Justice John Marshall some 7 years later. In 1846, an attempt was made to restore the bell’s tone by drilling the crack so as to separate the sides of the fracture. This attempt failed. The bell was actually tolled for Washington’s birthday, but for the last time, for the crack began to spread.
Now that the bell was mute, useless as a summoner or sounder of alarms, it began to assume a new and more vital role. Over the years it came to be a symbol of human liberty—a very substantial symbol of 2,080 pounds of cast metal—inscribed with the Biblical admonition to “proclaim liberty.”
