The Liberty Bell: Telling and Tolling Freedom

William Penn's charter which became the first constitution of Pennsylvania (the Charter of Privileges) was made in1701, and the Pennsylvania Assembly wished to celebrate th 50th anniversary of its signing in 1751. The manner in which they decided to commemorate it was with a magnificent bell. And so, in 1751 the Assembly placed an order for a bell to be manufactured in England and delivered to the city.

There is widespread disagreement about when the first crack appeared in the Bell.

The bell arrived in Philadelphia on September 1, 1752, but it was not hung until March 10, of the following year. At that time, Isaac Norris wrote, "I had the mortification to hear that it was cracked by a stroke of the clapper without any other viollence [sic] as it was hung up to try the sound."

The cause of the crack is thought to have been due to flaws in its casting or, as they thought at the time, to its being too brittle.Two Philadelphia foundry workers named John Pass and John Stow were given the cracked bell and instructed to melt it down and recast it. They decided to alter the alloy, and added an ounce and a half of copper to a pound of the old bell in an attempt to make the new bell less brittle. The additional metal added about 36 pounds to the bell's weight.

The Liberty Bell was rung to call the Pennsylvania Assembly together as well as to call the people together for special announcements and events. It is agreed that the bell was rung frequently. It rang when Benjamin Franklin was sent to England to address Colonial grievances, as well as when King George III ascended to the throne in 1761. It was also used to call the people of Philadelphia together to discuss the Sugar Act in 1764 and the Stamp Act in 1765.

Unfortunately, the bell cracked once again, the final expansion of the crack, rendering the Bell unringable was on Washington's Birthday in 1846. According to the Philadelphia Public Ledger, in a story printed February 26, 1846:

"The old Independence Bell rang its last clear note on Monday last in honor of the birthday of Washington and now hangs in the great city steeple irreparably cracked and dumb. It had been cracked before but was set in order of that day by having the edges of the fracture filed so as not to vibrate against each other ... It gave out clear notes and loud, and appeared to be in excellent condition until noon, when it received a sort of compound fracture in a zig-zag direction through one of its sides which put it completely out of tune and left it a mere wreck of what it was."

In 1847 a fictional story was composed for The Saturday Currier by George Lippard, which worked its way into American lore. Lippard wrote of an elderly bellman waiting in the State House steeple in July, 1776 for word that Congress had declared Independence. It was said that he began to doubt Congress's resolve, when suddenly the bellman's grandson, who had been listening at the doors to the congressional chamber, cried out, "Ring, Grandfather! Ring!"

This story caught the imagination of people to the extent that the Liberty Bell was forever associated with the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The Liberty Bell Center was opened in October, 2003. On every Fourth of July, at 2 pm Eastern time, children who are descendants of Declaration signers symbolically tap the Liberty Bell 13 times while bells across the nation also ring 13 times in honor of the patriots from the original 13 states