Mahone Bay Old School_A Life and Times_Bob Sayer

The school bell was no longer needed to toll for the willing and the unwilling.
There had been an old bell in the pre-1914 building. It was kept, and there is
an interesting reference in the Town Council minutes of August 9th, 1921:
‘Fire Bell…Councilor Ernst and the Fire Chief offered to erect the old school bell
on the steel tower, free of charge’. The steel fire bell tower was just behind the
‘new’ [1919] Town Hall on Main Street. Bobby Mader and Ivan Westhaver
once rang it as a prank. As punishment, Bobby had to clean out the two town
jail cells for a month.
The ‘New’ Bell’s Origins and Resting Place: School Reunion 2000 Committee
• After wasting and rusting in the school tower for nearly forty years, the bell
was restored and resuscitated by the School Reunion 2000 Committee
• Suzanne Lohnes-Croft is the daughter of one-time Mahone student, Town
Mayor and school board member, Philip Lohnes. Her great uncle was Charlie
Lohnes, ‘founding father’. What goes around, comes around!. She was a
member of the reunion executive. She took a personal interest in the bell and
tells of the following research: Photo: Courtesy Jackie Whynot Collection.
The Lunenburg Foundry crane gently lowers the bell. The rest of the journey
would be by truck. Suzanne wrote:
‘The Old Bell has had quite a journey. In December 2000 the Town Council of
Mahone Bay agreed to allow the Reunion 2000 Committee to be the keepers of
the bell’ [the letter from Kyle R.Hiltz, Town Clerk and Treasurer-himself a
Mahone Bay School graduate-confirmed that at the November 10th 2000
Council meeting, ‘a motion was passed that if Bayview Community School
allows the bell to be put on display, it can be moved to its new location.’]
‘In April 2001 the bell left its home at the top of the Old Mahone Bay School. Being
witness to this event, I noted the name of the ‘American Bell Foundry Michigan
#28 on the bell. I jotted down the information. I don’t think I was home more than
10 minutes before I was searching the net for information.
My research brought me in contact through e-mail with a librarian, Alan Smitely,
whose City Library held the records of The American Bell Company. Through our
joint research we found that the bell was ordered through none other than Sears,
who were agents. The bell most likely traveled by train and freighter to Halifax,
then by train [or the freighter S.S. Kinburn?] to Mahone Bay. The bell, raised by
block and tackle, came down by crane.
Through the efforts of John Biebesheimer, Kevin Feindel and Darwin MacPhail the
bell has been physically restored and mounted with a time capsule sealed in the case’.
The Specifications: Bell & Time Capsule Case. Courtesy John Biebesheimer
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