Church Bells by Bell

Most of the Navasota and regional surrounding area churches as well as some schools feature a ringing bell. A question that could be asked is if any of these churches or schools have a historic bell manufactured early on by the C. S. Bell Company of Hillsboro, Ohio.

An Iowa farm boy, who grew up with the ringing of a farm bell, has recently written a book, “Large Bells of America: History of Church Bells…& Foundries.” In it he tells of the over century long history of the C. S. Bell Company. The Bell Company became the largest producer of big bells in North America in the mid-1850s to over 100 years in the 1970s through three generations of the Bell Family. Virginia Bell Thompson, who ran the firm for 34 years, was the last. A year after her death, the company was sold out of the family in 1974. The new buyers ceased casting all bell sizes larger than dinner bell size more commonly known as farm bells. Those bells were made until 1984 when all the molds were then sold to a California Company.

Charles Singleton Bell, a Scotsman, started his firm in 1858, making Mogul stoves, caboose stoves, coffee hullers and pulpers, grinders, corn and cob crushers, burr and hammer type feed mills, sorghum and maple syrup evaporators, plows and garden rollers, cane mills, and the well-known kitchen counter meat grinders.

The family story passed down through the generations was that Bell dropped a piece of steel and it struck something on the floor that made a ringing sound. Bell thought the ringing sound was so unique that he began casting bells of steel instead of the traditional cast iron. In truth, the reality is there is little difference in the sound, but Bell made and sold 1,000 steel bells his first year. Demand became so great that he soon concentrated his business on casting bells.

The bells were first made in diameters from 12 inches through 48 inches, then jumped to the largest at 54 inches. Farm and dinner bells ran from 12 to 18 inches; school bells ran from 20 to 28 inches, and fire alarm bells ran from 30 to 54 inches. The school bells were cast with a thinner wall to give them a higher pitched sound to not be confused as a church or fire bell.

At the time of World War II, the Bell firm produced ship and air raid bells for the United States Navy as well as the Navies of Great Britain and Russia.

If one purchased a bell from Montgomery Ward, Sears Roebuck, or the Henry Field Seed Catalog, it was probably made by the Bell Company. The catalog bells did not have the “Bell”’ name on the side. However, it did say “Cast Steel Church (or School) Bell on the other side.

The largest church bells came with a wooden wheel, while the school and smaller church bells came with an iron wheel. Most school and church bells also had a yoke, a clapper, as well as two ‘A’ frame stands with a wheel for a dangling rope to swing the bell.

Are there any Bell bells in this region? (As a side note… the Liberty Bell, cast at a foundry in England in 1752 was shipped to Philadelphia, where it was installed in the Assembly House.)

(Written by Betty Dunn, Two Rivers Heritage Foundation. See www.tworiversheritagefoundation. org for more info and membership)