Okay, the first site I'm going to list is the Liberty Bell Center, home of the Liberty Bell. I recall the line to view the bell was quite long, and as we were visiting in March, the weather was warm but easily tolerable. At that time in our history, you could actually touch the bell which I remember doing as I exited the viewing line. After an attack on the bell in 2001, the bell was moved out of reach of visitors and a no touching ban was instituted going forward.
Like a great deal of our Country's founding documents and artifacts, the Liberty Bell was inscribed with a quote from the Bible, "Proclaim Liberty thro' all the Land to all the Inhabitants thereof."- Levit. XXV. vX. This verse was chosen in 1751 by the Pennsylvania Assembly to celebrate the 50th anniversary of William Penn's Charter of Privileges. Penn’s charter was a foundational document for the colony that guaranteed religious freedom and democratic rights. The verse was a perfect fit for the occasion, as in Hebrew tradition, the 50th year is the "Year of Jubilee," a time when debts were forgiven and enslaved people were set free.
Our guide didn't give us a lot of the back story on the famous crack but fortunately, I had a passionate American History teacher, Mr. Tucker, who went into detail the history behind some of the places and sites we visited. He explained that the original bell, ordered from a foundry in London, cracked after it was first rung upon it's arrival in Philadelphia. Attempts to return the bell were unsuccessful and the project fell to ocal workmen John Pass and John Stow, whose surnames appear on the bell. They melted down the first bell and recast it using ten percent more copper. After the repair, the sound was deemed unsatsifactory, and the local craftsman melted it down once again and after this repair, the bell was hung in the State House steeple.
However, Issac Norris, who originally ordered the bell from the London foundry, was still not happy with the sound, and ordered a second bell from the original vendor and after the new bell arrived, the Liberty Bell was moved to the State Assembly house and used to summon lawmakers into session.
As the American Revolutionary War intensified, delegates to the Second Continental Congress, colonial era city officials, and Philadelphia citizens were acutely aware that the British Army would likely recast the bell into munitions if they were able to find and secure it. Prior to the city's fall to the British, the Liberty Bell and other major bells in Philadelphia were hastily taken down from their towers, and sent by heavily guarded wagon train to Bethlehem and then to Zion German Reformed Church at 622 Hamilton Street in Allentown, the Liberty Bell was hidden under the church's floor boards just as the British entered and began their occupation of Philadelphia.
The bell remained hidden in Allentown for nine months. Following the victory of Washington and the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, the bell was placed on an upper floor of State House, later named Independence Hall, where it was rung on Independence Day, on Washington's Birthday, and on election day to remind voters to hand in their ballots.
However, the bell did not earn its famous name until the 1830s. At that time, anti-slavery abolitionists adopted the bell and its Leviticus inscription as a rallying cry, pointing out the hypocrisy of a nation that claimed to "proclaim liberty" while allowing slavery to persist. It is not definitively known when or how the Liberty Bell first came to be cracked, but it is known that the damage occurred sometime between 1817 and 1846 and likely toward the end of this period. In 1837, the bell was depicted in an anti-slavery publication, and no crack is identifiable in that image.
In February 1861, then President-elect Abraham Lincoln came to the Assembly Room and delivered an address en route to his inauguration in Washington D.C. Following Lincoln's assassination in 1865, Lincoln's body was returned to the Assembly Room for a public viewing of his body, en route to his burial in Springfield, Illinois. The bell, was carefully placed at Lincoln's head so mourners could read the inscription, "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."
The Liberty Bell currently weighs 2,080 pounds. Its metal is 70% copper and 25% tin, with the remainder consisting of lead, zinc, arsenic, gold, and silver. It hangs from what is believed to be its original yoke, made from American elm. Although the crack in the bell appears to end at the abbreviation "Philada" in the last line of the inscription, that is merely the widened crack, filed out during the 19th century to allow the bell to ring. A hairline crack, extending through to the inside of the bell, continues towards the right and gradually moves to the top of the bell, through the word "and" in "Pass and Stow", then through the word "the" before the word "Assembly", and finally through the letters "rty" in the word "Liberty". The crack ends near the attachment with the yoke.
Professor Constance M. Greiff, in her book tracing the history of Independence National Historical Park, wrote of the Liberty Bell: "The Liberty Bell is the most venerated object in the park, a national icon. It is not as beautiful as some other things that were in Independence Hall in those momentous days two hundred years ago, and it is irreparably damaged. Perhaps that is part of its almost mystical appeal. Like our democracy it is fragile and imperfect, but it has weathered threats, and it has endured."
It was a great honor to view and touch this historical artifact of the founding of our republic.
