Hernando School Bell – CS Bell and his Bell Factory

The 26 inch School Bell (in the museum) was made by the Charles Singleton Bell Foundry of Ohio and was purchased from Mrs Thomas Gary for he new Brooksville High School in 1918 . The school stood for 50 years. The site is currently occupied by the First Baptist Church. In 1925 a new high school was built, and the bell remained when the building was converted to a grammar school. 

C.S. Bell and his Bell Foundry  Charles Singleton Bell was born in Cumberland, Maryland on February 7, 1828. After completing a common school education, he went to Pittsburgh to learn the foundry business from his uncle, Alexander Bradley. He came to Ohio to take charge of the Whitley Foundry in Springfield and later moved on to Dayton. On January 7, 1858, he began the operation of his own company in Hillsboro. Starting with two employees and a weekly payroll of $7.00, they processed 8 tons of pig iron the first year. The early foundry was located in a frame building near the B & O Railroad Depot. A few years later, a second foundry was built on the corner of Main and North West Streets. James K. Marley became a partner and ran the showroom while Mr. Bell operated the foundry. In 1869, Bell purchased Marley's interest and continued to add more items to his list of products, which were to include Mogul stoves, caboose stoves, coffee hullers and pulpers, grinders, corn and cob crushers, burr and hammer typed feed mills, a machine called the "Tortilla" (used in Mexico and South America to grind hominy), sorghum and maple syrup evaporators, plows and garden rollers, and the "Perfection" cane mill made to be sold by the Montgomery Ward Company.

The manufacture of bells began in 1875. Sales for the first year came to something over 1,000 units. By 1890, sales had increased to over 20,000 and fifteen sizes were being produced. The bells were divided into two classes, farm bells weighing from 40 to 100 pounds each, and school and church bells known as "steel alloy bells" weighing from 150 to 1,000 pounds. Mr. Bell experimented with formulas of various metals searching for an alloy cheaper to produce than brass, but more durable than iron. After many failures he was successful and discovered that his alloy could be pitched to create a very mellow tone. It was this tone and durability that made his bells famous throughout the world.

Mr. Bell was a prominent citizen of Hillsboro, and is still regarded as one of the town's greatest benefactors. He built Bell's Opera House in 1895, at a cost of $40,000. He was a stockholder in the McKeehan and Hiestand Wholesale Company, the Merchants National Bank, a partner in a hardware firm with John McCoppin, and served on the Village Council and Board of Education for many years. In 1887, Mr. Bell was appointed chairman of a committee to establish a library, The Hillsboro Reading Room, which was located on the second floor of the Town Hall. In January 1880, the Columbus and Maysville Railroad Company was organized in Hillsboro with C.S. Bell as President. In 1848, Mr. Bell married Mary Louisa Roberts. They were the parents of five children. Charles E., Alice Morton who married L.B. Boyd, John who died in 1891, Cora E. and May. Between 1882 and 1885, the Bell family built "Clover Lawn" a three story brick mansion located on Oak Street, currently being renovated by the Odland Family who suggested the theme of The Festival of the Bells.

For a time, sales of the bells slowed so the company again concentrated on manufacturing labor saving farm machinery until defense contracts prior to World War II caused a shortage of brass and copper. Hearing that the Bureau of Ships was looking for a metal substitute, Virginia Bell took one of her grandfather’s alloy bells to Washington D.C. and personally obtained a contract. The Bell foundry manufactured all ship's bells for the United States, Great Britain and their allies during the war.

The modern descendant of this firm bears the same name, but has moved to Tiffin, in northwest Ohio. It retains the logo of its predecessor, a drawing of a cast steel post mount farm bell (shown here). However, all rights to the manufacture of bells were sold many years ago, and the company no longer is in that business. When was my bell made? is the most common question asked by owners of postmount farm bells and other cast steel bells. Probably that's because those bells typically are not dated (as cast bronze bells usually are). However, in the case of bells which obviously came from Hillsboro, Ohio, it is at least possible to determine the time period within which the bell must have been made. 

In all cases, the maker's name appears not on the bell itself, as it usually does for bronze bells, but on the yoke from which the bell is hung.

Post mount steel bells from this source cannot be dated more precisely than that. Larger steel bells (those supported by a pair of side frames) can sometimes be dated by looking at the inside of the bell. For some years, foundry crews were in the habit of stamping a date code on the inside mold of a bell before casting it.

Who made my bell? is the next most common question asked by owners of bells. If it has any of the variants of "C.S. Bell" shown above, then it was almost certainly made by Charles Singleton Bell or the company which he began in Hillsboro, Ohio. However, if the bell shows no significant signs of use, then it could be a modern reproduction from some other source. Note that not all bells manufactured by this company bore one of these names, because some were sold through catalog houses or other retail channels; those bells either were unlabeled or bore the name of the retailer.

The School Bell is on display at the museum.