We have returned triumphant from our trek to Altoona! Kevin and I collected a whopping 22 markers in five counties - Luzerne, Columbia, Montour, Centre, and Blair. (We almost added Union and Clinton Counties to the list, but I didn't have my lists handy for those.) It was a lovely trip and he very much enjoyed his birthday celebration, and was an absolute champion about asking me if I wanted to stop for markers. We visited a number of interesting places and I look forward to telling you all about them in future posts.
But first, we're picking up where I left off last time. In last week's post, I talked about my experiences attending a marker dedication earlier in the month at the "Liberty Bell Church" in Allentown. It was a fun event and I was glad to be there. Now this week, I can tell you about the actual history which led to the marker being put there.
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| The marker stands directly in front of the church at 622 West Hamilton Street, Allentown |
Much of the story I'm about to relate comes to me courtesy of Stephanie Burke, tour guide and general keeper of awesome knowledge at the Liberty Bell Shrine museum. 1776 rolled around and the American Revolution got underway. In September of 1777, the British took control of Philadelphia; the Continental Congress members were in hiding lest they be executed for treason; and the news went out that, when they arrived in late September, the Brits planned to melt down all the church bells in the city.
It's generally believed, and even taught in schools, that the reason for this plan was to provide their soldiers with ammunition. However, according to Ms. Burke, the real reason they wanted to melt the bells was because that was the closest thing Philadelphia had at the time to Facebook. Church bells could be used for communication, summoning people to where they could learn things or even sending coded messages out to those who knew what they were hearing. The State House Bell was particularly vital, because it was the one used to summon lawmakers to meetings and townspeople to news-sharing gatherings. The best way to control a population is to control their means of sharing information, and so the Brits intended to remove the bells and thus take away their mass communication.
So the rebels decided that if anyone was taking their bells away, they were doing it themselves, and they'd take them north to the farm country where they would be unlikely to be discovered. Ten church bells, plus the State House Bell (known today as the Liberty Bell) were removed from their positions in the dead of night. Two men were dispatched from Northamptontown, Frederick Leaser and John Jacob Mickley, to travel to Philadelphia and guide the wagon caravan north. The bells were hidden inside massive piles of hay, which the redcoat soldiers were disinclined to inspect too closely because the hay piles included quite a bit of manure. As Ms. Burke put it, the droppings from the caravan horses was free fertilizer and the farmers weren't about to let that go to waste, so the presence of the manure raised no suspicions at all. To further aid the cause, a rumor was spread through Philadelphia that the missing bells had all been dropped into the Delaware River to keep them out of British hands, and so the invading forces focused their efforts on dredging the river and paid little to no attention to a bunch of hay-filled wagons heading up to the northern farmlands. The image here is a portion of the 46-foot mural in the Liberty Bell Shrine, depicting the events of the daring maneuver, painted by Wilmer G. Behler of Bethlehem. (While I waited for the marker dedication to begin, I slipped into the shrine and was able to take several photos before anyone else entered the room.)
According to the Moravian Archives, the bell convoy left Philadelphia on September 14th, about a week ahead of the British fleet's arrival, and they reached the city of Bethlehem on September 24th. Their records indicate that "the wagon carrying the State House Bell from Philadelphia arrived together with 700 wagons from Philadelphia and Trenton and escorted by 200 soldiers under the command of Col. Wm. Polk." The wagon carrying the State House Bell actually broke down in der Platz, the center public square of Bethlehem, in front of the Moravian Church. After some repairs, the wagon resumed its course, and was brought to Zion's Reformed Church on what is today Hamilton Street in Allentown, where the Rev. Abraham Blumer welcomed the renegades and helped to stash their prize beneath the church's floorboards - because after all, who would ever look there?
Eventually, of course, the war ended, and the bells which had been taken from churches were returned to their steeples. The State House Bell returned to the Pennsylvania State House, where it continued to serve its purpose until the famous crack developed in the 1840s. Attempts to repair the bell were not successful, and it was retired from active duty. It gained new life during the Civil War, however, being used as an emblem by abolitionists. It was renamed "the Liberty Bell" and, after the war, was taken on tour for people to see, so that they could remind themselves that there was a time when the entire country united in the cause of liberty, and was adopted as a symbol for suffragists and the civil rights movement. Today it sits enshrined in Philadelphia's Liberty Bell Center, where it is free to be viewed by all visitors (hours may vary).
Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants thereof.
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
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