The Liberty Bell

The bell we now call the Liberty Bell was originally known as the State House bell because it rang in the tower of the Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall, in Philadelphia. Isaac Norris, Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly, ordered the bell for the tower in 1751 from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London. But the bell cracked on its first test ring, and so it was melted down and cast into a new one by two Philadelphia metal workers, John Pass and John Stow, in 1753.

The bell weighed 2,080 pounds at order. It is made of bronze (70% copper, 25% tin, with small amounts of lead, gold, arsenic, silver, and zinc). Its strike note was E-flat. The bell’s wooden yoke is American elm, although there is no evidence that it is the original yoke for the bell. Contrary to popular legend, there is no evidence that the bell rang on July 4 or 8, 1776, to signal the signing or public reading of the Declaration of Independence.

There is no record of when or why the bell first cracked. The cause of the crack has been thought to be attributable to flaws in its casting or because it was too brittle. The most likely explanation is that a narrow split developed from hard use of the bell for nearly 90 years. In 1846, the city decided to repair the bell prior to George Washington’s birthday and metal workers widened the thin crack to stop its further spread and to restore its tone. But the repair was not successful when another fissure developed and silenced the bell forever. No one living today has heard the bell ring freely with its clapper, although computer models have been used to simulate its sound.

Independence Hall

Weeks before the British occupied Philadelphia in October 1777, all bells, including the Liberty Bell, were removed from the city. It was understood that if the British took possession of the bells, they would likely be melted down and used for cannon balls. The Liberty Bell was removed from the Philadelphia and hidden in the floorboards of the Zion Reformed Church in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

The Liberty Bell’s inscription is from the King James version of the Bible in Leviticus 25:10 - ’Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof’. The full text of the verse reads: ’And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family’. It has been suggested that Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly Isaac Norris chose this inscription for the State House bell in 1751, possibly to commemorate the 50th anniversary of William Penn's 1701 Charter of Privileges which granted religious liberties and political self-government to the people of Pennsylvania.

For more information about the Liberty Bell, please visit the following links:
Constitution Center
Encylclopedia Britannica
National Park Service
US History
Wikipedia

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