The Republican journal., 1872-11-14
Bells of St. MichaeI's


last sleep amid the palms and the crosses
| until the resurrection dav.
Bells of St. Michaers
Very dear to the people of Charleston,
South Carolina, is st. Michael's Church
in that city, which is said to have been
built after 4 model furnished by Sir Chris
topher Wren, and copied from St.-Mar-
tin'5-in-theF Fields, London. The likeness
to st. Martins is so strong that no Charles
tonian on coming to London needs have
that church pointed out. The spire of st.
MichaeFs, however, is much the more
beautiful Every one who had seen it
would remember the church, with its Old
fashioned mahogany pulpit, and great
brass chandeliers, and high, black mahog-
any pews, where the deyout might pray,
and the careless sleep unseen. But chief
ly were the people proud OF their bells.
There was no such chime in the colony
when they were hung, and after they had
changed their tune of God save the King
for Yankee Doodle, there never were any
bells in New York or Boston that came
up to them in their Fourth of July per-
tormances. OF all the works of mans
hands, there is none which seems to have
such a life of its own as bells. How they
sympathize with the people, giving voice
to their Joys and their sorrows! How,
with prophets voices, they speak to each
man in his own tongue! And how some
times, like mocking spirits, they urge the
mad fury OF the mob with peals of venge-
ance and triumph, which in the ears of
the wiser few are Gnell of despair!
10 ~,
1880, they stabbed their horses in the
church, and unhanging the bells, sent
them off to London, where they were
dumped on the Tower wharf and left un-
noticed for many years. At last the Vestry
of st. Michaels received letter bidding
them expect their bells by certain ship
sailing from London. The people went
in procession to bring up from the ship
their beloved bells, which they had never
hoped to listen to again, and with PRAYERS
and thanksgivings they were replaced in
the church tower. The pious benefactor
never made himself known, but he was
supposed TO have been some British officer
who had been at the taking of Charleston
For seventy years did those bells regulate
the social lite of the city. For, not only
did they call to worship, and celebrate all
occasions of public joy and sorrow, but
nightly they rang 4 curfew which ruled
everybodY's movements. 1t was intended
to warn the negroes home at nine o'clock
IN winter, ten in summer; after that hour
they might not 90 into the streets without
written pass. The nimbe negro often
eluded the statute, giving legbail to the
"guardman,' but the whites put them
selves under the rule, of their own accord
Ali visitors were expected to take leave
at bell-ring, and they punctually departed
at the same moment that Cuffy was brush
ing along to gain his gate before the tap
of the drum should make him amenable
to the law against strollers latter hours. :"
as it was called.
1t would not suit this sketch to recall
the memories of the day when the United
States flag, lowered from Fort Sumter,
was brought up to the city; amid a hush so
general, one might have thought the people
repented them OF their rash act, till some
one ordered the bells to ring a mad clan
COR, and with shouts of eXutation they
drowned the voice that still warned them
to forbear.
Time went on, and Charleston behind
her detences Of sand resisted all the efforts
to carry her. During the five hundred
(546) days of bombardment all the lower
part OF the town had to be abandoned.
Houses and churches were shattered, the
cannon balls tore up the very graveyards,
and the bones of the dead We're scattered.
Yet the spire of St. Michael's was I'M
touched. Perhaps the canroneers tried to
spare it-perhaps good angels guarded it..
But, what neither the malice of the enemy
nor the spite of fortune did, the people
themselves effected, for the bells were
taken down and sent to Columbia, to be
cast into cannon. General Beaureeard.
perhaps shocked at the dissertation, pro-
nounced them unfit for the purpose; and
the fate, which heaped up at Columbia for
safe-keeping every thing of value in the
State, there detained the bells also. Then
Sherman's army passed through, leaving
its track as Of lightning. A party of half
drunken soldiers, out for lark and for
plumber, were aecosted by negro who
offered to show them the bells which had
rung in secession. "Never," said the
men, "shall they play that tune again %
and they smashed them into q hundred
pieces.
Sad was the return to the desolated
homes, and the meeting in the dumb
church, to which no miracle might now
restore the voice of the chimes they loved.
But they were men of pluck still, and, as
soon asthey had shaken themselves up
and provided for the first pressing needs,
they resolved to tax themselves to the
utmost to get q new chime.
Scarcely had the rector bread, and the
vestry and congregation were all very
poor, but they wrote to c R. Prioleau, of
London, to inquire the cost of new set.
This gentleman had lived so long in Eng
land as to have become almost an Eng
lishman, with fair English wife and
bluff, handsome English children, but his
heart stirred at they recollection of the
dear old voices that had called him in
chlldhood, and he undertook the task with
loving zeal that brought about the
most surprising results. There was no
record at Charleston of wnere the bells
came from. But Mr.. Prioleau searched
the directory for the Oldest founders of
the city, and went from one to the other.
until at Meares & Co., White Chapel,
London, firm which has been in existence
three hundred years, he found by patient
examination. the record of bells cast for
St. Michael's Church, Charleston. S. c..
in 1859. The proportions of the metal
and sizes of the bells, were all entered in
the books; and the present Meares en-
gagged to turn out new set which, when
hung, should make the Charlestonians
themselves think they heard their VERT
able old bells.
But Mr.. Prioleau was not content with
this; he wrote back to have all the frag-
ments that could be found sent out--and
this was done. Meanwhile Meares found
still in their service an old man of seventy
six, who had been apprenticed under the
very foreman who. more than a hundred
years before, had cast those bells; and he,