Remember The Town Hall Bell And The Stories It Tells

The master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe, wrote in his onomatopoeic poem, The Bells, these beguiling words:

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!

How it swells!

How it dwells

On the Future! how it tells

Of the rapture that impels

To the swinging and the ringing

Of the bells, bells, bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells—

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

As Poe so elegantly conveys, there is meaning in the ringing of a bell. Their presence are always bound to a story. The following collection of gathered consonants and vowels is one such story of a southern town and its esteemed bell.

In 1888, a sweeping declaration was made about this quiet, summer village just outside of Charleston that would decidedly put it on the world map, and its town planners judiciously accommodated the acknowledgment. By 1891, the pine-forested community's era of the Golden Age of the Inns was in full swing. The crown jewel of accommodations, the Pine Forest Inn, was completed and its doors swung open to welcome the influx of anticipated arriving travelers. With the ensuing growth, time, if not necessity, called for a new town hall to be built. A corner plot was chosen where the streets of West Richardson and S. Main Street intersected. The cost to build it was set at $6,250.

The planned four story building would wisely face the town's main square, an idyllic vantage point. The first floor would house a high-end grocery store called the "Tea Pot". The second floor would contain the municipal offices. On the third floor, a multi-purpose room/auditorium space would be available for special town events such as dances, plays, parties and operas. The fourth story would shelter the structures most spellbinding and controversial feature, a bell, and it would prove to be not just any ordinary bell.

In Charleston, Summerville's need for a bell came to the attention of Doctor Anthony Toomer Porter, head of The Arsenal, also known at one time as the Porter Military Academy. The bell Doctor Porter would present to Summerville hung in The Arsenal's chapel tower, Holy Communion Church Institute, where it had a long history ringing out reveille, taps, mess call, and the summons to lessons and to prayers for those attending the academy. Interestingly, like the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, it had a crack in it. It made the short journey to Summerville in 1893.

With the installing of the historical bell, the new Town Hall was complete. It would ring out the time to the town for the opening and closing of business hours, mark worker's noon time rest period and signal knock-off time for laborers. It rang in the new years. It also served as a fire alarm, indicating by a predetermined sequence of rings, which part of town was on fire, to direct the volunteer firefighters to the correct location.

During World War II, civilians were stationed in the Town Hall bell tower as lookouts. Their task was to watch the skies for enemy aircraft and when spotted, sound the alarm. Silhouettes of enemy aircraft were pinned on the interior walls to assist the lookouts in making proper identifications. One night, the town had a scare when out of the darkened skies a plane buzzed the tower. Combined with several other suspicious incidents that night, officials were convinced the town was under attack, but fortunately, it was all a false alarm. It turned out an impulsive local boy on a training flight just couldn't resist the urge to be playful. Maybe, he heard one of the town's unattached pretty girls was on duty that night.

Children were forbidden to go up into the Town Hall belfry for obvious safety reasons, not to leave unmentioned the easy temptation presented to an impetuous youth to playfully ring the bell. Although, stories tell of savvy youngsters secretly trudging their way up through the humid darkness of the steep, creaky belfry stairs. Being the tallest building on Hutchinson Square, the view the belfry offered was often the prize. Imagine the thrill one would experience at seeing from above President Roosevelt and his entourage ride by on Main Street as they made their way to the Pine Forest Inn.

Now, visualize the chaos a person could unleash on the town with an unauthorized ringing of the bell. There was a $200 fine for anyone foolish enough to do it. A popular story tells of a physician named Louis Miles ignoring the law and ringing the bell to announce the birth of his daughter to a confused crowd that gathered below. He happily paid the fine not once, but twice for the same reason.

Time passed and the wooden building began to succumb to its age. School commencements were held in the old Town Hall. At such an event one evening, in the middle of the ceremony, an announcement was made for the attendees to leave the building in an orderly and quiet manner. Later, it was reported some of the town's officials in attendance had felt an ominous swaying. The upper floors were declared unsafe for public gatherings, in part, due to the weight of the bell in the fourth floor tower. Shortly after, the entire building was condemned and in time, the bell was removed.

The bell was stored for a time at the Street Department Maintenance Building. When Watts School, Gaud School, and Porter Military Academy merged to form Porter-Gaud on the Ashley River in 1964, the public relations person for the school contracted to obtain the bell for the new school. A group called the Sons of the Bell was formed of the alumni to raise money for a special bell tower to be built to house the old bell. Ironically, the bell would be on its way back to the place where it unleashed its first tintinnabulations and to this day hangs in the school's WATCH Tower.

Void of its most cherished part, the rickety wooden Town Hall was torn down in 1963. Plans were drawn for the replacement. This one would be built with a more time tested material, bricks. For a while, its location was uncertain. Several sites were considered, but ultimately, the decision was made to keep it at the head of Town Square. The new Town Hall was dedicated on November 14, 1969. Unfortunately, it was missing a feature that was manifestly a Summerville tradition, the bell.

Due to the town's continued growth, an annex was built next to the new Town Hall with a much bigger auditorium to relieve overcrowding at council meetings along with a room with a TV monitor for overflow crowds, and a bell tower. In 2008, though not to the scale of the original, the traditional bell was restored to the Town and was hoisted to the top of the annex. It has become a nostalgic reminder of days gone by when the opening and closing of business hours was sounded by the town hall bell.

When next in town, listen for the toll of the new bell and then, remember the old town hall bell and the stories it tells.

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Source material: Summerville Sesquicentennial, Porch Rocker Collections, and other.

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