By Dr. Phillip Stone ’94, college archivist
Much has changed on campus over the past 171 years, but if a Wofford student from the 1850s landed on campus today, they’d still hear a familiar sound: the college bell in Main Building.
Installed in the summer of 1854, the bell is one of the oldest features on campus. In his “Memories of Wofford College” manuscript, James Carlisle Jr., a member of the Class of 1885 and the son of President James H. Carlisle, explained that all the original faculty and their families gathered to see the bell before it was raised to its home near the top of the west tower.
The bell was manufactured by the Meneely Foundry in West Troy, N.Y. This foundry was established in 1826 by Andrew Meneely, and eventually two of his three sons took over the firm. The third son started his own company across the Hudson River in Troy. Together, the two Meneely foundries crafted some 65,000 bells, many of which are still in use in churches and schools today. Wofford’s bell weighs around 700 pounds and bears the words “From Meneely’s, West Troy, New York, 1854.”
The bell survived the Civil War, when many similar bells were melted down for military use. James Carlisle Jr. reported that in the 19th century, with less noise from traffic or industry, farmers four or five miles from campus could hear the bell marking the beginning and ending of classes and celebrating other important events. On his deathbed in 1909, President Carlisle commented to his children, “The old bell is still doing business at the same old stand.” Many years later, Dean Philip Covington recounted a story from an alumnus who had the task of ringing out the 19th century and ringing in the 20th. The student recounted that he had tolled the bell 19 times slowly at one minute before midnight on Dec. 31, 1899, and then 20 enthusiastic times at midnight. The student said that he was pulling the rope so hard that he was “laying the rope on the floor.”
As the editor of the Old Gold and Black student newspaper in 1937, Dr. Lewis P. Jones ’38 climbed into the bell tower to survey the campus and examine the bell. “One rarely notices the bell,” he wrote, “yet it is the main regulator of life at Wofford.” Counting the number of rings each time the bell signaled a class change, Jones found that the clapper struck the bell some 1,300 times each week. Generations of Wofford students made bellringing a part-time job, earning scholarships by signaling the beginning and ending of classes each day. In later years, members of Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity took over the responsibility as volunteers.
Following a restoration in 2001, the bell now rings hourly, though no longer at class changes. Students can no longer walk by and give the bell rope a tug, but the college now works in a more intentional way to tie the bell to individual students. The college tolls the bell once for each student on the weekend that they arrive on campus as first-year students. On Commencement morning, the bell tolls once for each graduate. And on All Saints Day in the year after an alumnus dies, the bell is tolled for them a final time. This tradition is shared annually in the Baccalaureate sermon with the graduating class by the Rev. Dr. Ron Robinson ’78, Perkins- Prothro Chaplain and Professor of Religion.
Just as it has throughout the life of the college, the bell remains a constant presence in daily life on campus.