ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – The Trinity Parish Episcopal Church will soon hear the ring of its prized 1942 bell again.
Some parishioners attended a pre-dawn ceremony to bless the bell before dawn Friday before a crane lifted it three stories to its home in the church steeple.
“I’m particularly excited about and blessed that we have parishioners who were here the last time it was rung. When they were little, they actually rang the bell. They’re in their late 80s now. We’re pretty excited about that. It’s a new beginning,” Junior Warden Bruce Belmont said.
Termite damage to the cradle and wheel had rendered the historic bell inoperable.
“The wooden wheel fell apart,” Rector Matt Marino said. “One day I went to ring the bell and it went ‘kkkkh’ and then bits of bell came down.”
It was brought down and shipped to Cincinnati for repairs. It was lifted back into place
Prior to its demise and removal, the bell would ring before services at Trinity, resounding through the Plaza de la Constitucion and knitting together the St. Augustine community with a common reference point, The St. Augustine record reported.
After a refurbishment costing nearly $40,000, the bell was put in place in time for the church’s 200th anniversary next month.
“It’s lovely,” Marino said. “They polished it up. It looks better than it did the day it came out of the foundry.”
It is slated to ring for the first time before services Sunday, then every Sunday after.
“There are a group of men in the parish who grew up here and they would ring the bell as children when they were acolytes. So we will give them the first few Sundays,” Marino said.
