In 1751, Isaac Norris, the speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly commissioned the creation of a new bell for the Pennsylvania Statehouse (later known as Independence Hall) in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of William Penn’s Charter of Privileges in 1701.
First, he went to the Whitechapel Foundry in London. The Whitechapel Foundry produced a bell, but, when the town tested the bell for the first time, it cracked immediately.
Seeing how the London manufacturers had failed miserably, the local manufacturers John Pass and John Stow offered to recast the bell. Neither of the two were particularly experienced at casting bells, but they proceeded nonetheless. They melted down the bell and used the metal to create a new bell. When this bell was rung for the first time, it did not break, but its ring sounded atrocious and repulsive. Pass and Stow melted down the bell once again and recast it a second time. This time, when the bell was rung for the first time, the Assembly deemed its sound satisfactory, although Isaac Norris himself commented that he still thought the noise was hideous.
Due to the poor quality of the bell, the Assembly ordered for a new bell to be made for the clock tower. After the new bell was produced, the Assembly decided to keep both bells. They put the second bell in the clock tower to be rung every hour and determined that the bell from Pass and Stow would be used for whatever other purposes they could find. In the end, the bell from Pass and Stow was assigned to be rung to signal lawmakers to come to the statehouse for their meetings.
During the American Revolution, the bell manufactured by Pass and Stow was rung to announce to the members of the Continental Congress to come to their meetings.
Although bells were rung in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776 to announce the signing of the Declaration of Independence, there is no evidence to indicate that the Liberty Bell was one of them. Given the poor quality of the bell’s sound, it is entirely plausible that the bell may not have been rung on that particular occasion, although it is recorded that the Liberty Bell was rung in March of 1766 to herald the repeal of the Stamp Act.
The first time the bell in Independence Hall was referred to as the “Liberty Bell” was in 1835 in an article entitled “The Liberty Bell” published in The Anti-Slavery Record, the official journal of the New York Anti-Slavery Society. The article criticized the city of Philadelphia for not being supportive of the anti-slavery movement.
No one knows how or when the bell first became cracked. It seems that, apparently, in the early 1840s, a thin fissure developed in the side of the bell. In 1846, the metalworkers expanded the fissure in order to prevent it from spreading. This was a common technique known as “stop-drilling.” The “crack” in the side of the Liberty Bell is, in fact, intentional; it is the repair job that was implemented to prevent the growth of the fissure.
The repairs, however, turned out to be a monumental failure. Another fissure developed, causing the bell to go mute. No one alive today has ever heard the bell ring.
After it was removed from the bell tower at Independence Hall, the bell was put on public display and, for the first time, people began to notice the inscription written on the side of the bell, which had originally been put there in honor of the signing of William Penn’s Charter of Freedoms. It was a verse from Leviticus 25:10: “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants thereof.”
In 1847, George Lippard published his fictional short story “Ring, Grandfather, Ring,” which transformed the Liberty Bell into a symbol of freedom and democracy.
The message inscribed on the bell took on new meaning for abolitionists across the country, who used the inscription on the bell as a rallying cry against slavery.
In the late 1800s, following the chaos and bloodshed of the American Civil War, the Liberty Bell went on a public tour across the whole country, stopping in cities and towns in every state. For the deeply divided nation, the bell became a symbol of hope and unity.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/why-is-the-liberty-bell-cracked
https://www.nps.gov/inde/learn/historyculture/stories-libertybell.htm
http://www.ushistory.org/libertybell/
IMAGE CREDITS
The featured image for this article is a photograph of the Liberty Bell taken in 2008. This image was retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. The usage of this image is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Spencer, I really enjoy reading your blog. I love historical findings and learning something new. Keep them coming. I am Bella’s mom from Curtain Call.
I am glad you enjoy reading it. Thank you very much for feedback. I always appreciate it when people reading my articles tell me what they think of them. I will continue to publish more articles and I hope you keep reading them and finding them interesting.