Reprint: First Use, 1995 Pennsylvania Magazine.
1926 was the year of the Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition in Philadelphia. It was also the year that Pennsylvania exhibited six liberty bells —from Allentown, Chester, Easton, Lancaster, Reading and York. In addition, this was the year these six bells met the Philadelphia State House bell.
These six bells, from church steeples and courthouses, were chosen as ‘liberty’ bells because of their role in proclaiming the country’s liberty in their communities. These bells were rung on July 8, 1776, not July 4.
The State House bell received recognition through sketches found in an 1839 pamphlet, ‘The Liberty Bell,’ written by Friends of Freedom, and through true and fictional accounts of the bell in newspapers. The Liberty Bell name came from an anti-slavery movement that adopted the bell as a symbol of freedom in the 1830s.
Here is a brief history of the bells:
State House BellDuring Colonial days, one of the early signs of a growing community was a town hall with a municipal bell tower for communication. Philadelphia had a municipal building (now Independence Hall) by 1750, and a tower was built for a bell ordered by the Provincial Assembly. Four years later, the State House had two bells!
Why two bells? The first bell, cast by Whitechapel Foundry in England, cracked and had to be recast twice by Pass and Stow Foundry of Philadelphia. At the same time, a second bell was ordered from Whitechapel. The second bell, also unsatisfactory, attained the duty of striking hours for the State House clock. The original bell, reacast by Pass and Stow, won the honor of being placed in the State House tower, becoming the Philadelphia Liberty Bell. The inscription of the bell, ‘Proclaim Liberty thro’ all the land to all the Inhabitants thereof’ was suggested by Isaac Norris, Speaker of the Assembly.
During the Revolution, the State House bell was transported to Northampton Town (now Allentown) for safekeeping. After a year, the bell was returned to the State House.
Since 2011, the Liberty Bell is housed at Independence National Historic Park.
Allentown BellZion United Church of Christ holds a two-fold claim to liberty bells. The church not only sheltered the State House bell during the Revolution, but also has a freedom ringing bell of its own. In 1776, it was the only church in the village with a bell, thus it rang the news of freedom. The bell was cast in 1769 by Mathias Tommerop, a Bethlehem Moravian bell founder. It also served the Allentown Military Academy, but upon hearing the history of the bell, the academy presented it back to Zion’s Church. Today, the Liberty Bell Museum, founded in 1962, by Dr. Morgan Person, is based in the church.
Easton BellEaston’s bell was cast in 1768 by Mathias Tommerop of Bethlehem. This community has a three-fold claim to liberty—a bell, a flag, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
When the bell visited the Sesqui-Centennial, the Easton flag accompanied it because, according to tradition, that flag was the first to display 13 stars. Both the flag and the bell were at the first public reading of the Declaration. Each year Easton celebrates Heritage Day with a reenactment of this reading by a descendent of Robert Levers, the reader of the Declaration in 1776.
Today, the flag is on display at the Easton Public Library, and the Easton Bell is on display in the lobby of the new Northampton County Courthouse.
Reading BellThe Reading bell pealed forth its freedom notes on Penn Square, which has since been raised for a larger structure. The bell was cast by Thomas Bailey in Massachusetts in 1763, In 1841, the bell was purchased by the Boyertown St. John’s Union Church (after the Lutheran and Reformed sects separated, the bell was sold to the Reformed Church in 1871).
In 1923, on Readings’ 175th anniversary, a donor purchased the bell and gave it to the Berks County Historical Society, where it resides today.
Chester BellChester, Delaware County, is the oldest settlement in Pennsylvania and home of the oldest liberty bell, predating the State House bell by 28 years. This bell was cast in London in 1724.
Chester’s bell served the old courthouse, on Market Street near Fifth, for 100 years until it was replaced by a clock tower in 1856. Thereafter, the bell rang several more years to call children to classes at the Joseph Hoskin School. From 1917 to 1919, while the old courthouse was restored, it was inactive. The bell has since been returned to the courthouse tower.
Lancaster BellThe city of Lancaster once boasted two official liberty bells, as the bells of the Reformed Church and the Trinity Lutheran Church served both religious and civic capacities. Only the Trinity Lutheran bell survived.
This bell, cast in England in 1745, once as known as the Ephrata Bell, since it had been originally cast for the Seventh Day Baptists in nearby Ephrata. When the members declined the bell, it was sold to Trinity Church. Later, it was purchased by the Washington Fire Company, only to be bought by Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church—an offshoot of Trinity, now Grace Lutheran.
Today, Lancaster’s bell no longer peals but rests in the vestibule of the church.
York BellThe York bell tolled the news of the Declaration on July 9. The bell, possibly cast in England in 1774, may have been presented to St. John’s Episcopal Church as a gift from Queen Caroline of England. At the time of the presentation, the church was without a belfry so the bell was placed on a pole in Center Square. When the news of freedom arrived, the citizens quickly transferred the bell to the State House cupola to announce the joyous event.
It hung there until the courthouse was razed 65 years later. The church regained its bell, but not without opposition from the city. The bell had been at the courthouse for so long that some believed it belonged there.
Today, the bell is on display in the vestibule of the Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist.
More than 88 years have passed since our messengers of peace—the liberty bells-last met at Philadelphia’s Centennial of 1926. Arthur Gordon best expresses these symbols of peace this way: ‘If a soul of a nation is in its flag, its voice is in its bells…Struggling to express the inexpressible, it does not ask that liberty merely be proclaimed; it cries, ‘Let freedom ring!”
Carole Christman Koch grew up in Berks County and has been published in numerous publications. She has a passion for writing and has many stories from growing up on a farm to raising children to humorous stories about her and her husband to everyday stories to season stories and more.
