Wednesday, February 1, 2012

The Old South Meeting House in Boston . . . silent no more

No doubt every region in the country has a rich history. But when it comes to early American history - the colonial, revolutionary and  federalist periods - New England takes the cake. (Sorry, Philadelphia!)

The latest reminder of that fact comes from WBUR radio in Boston, which reported recently that the city’s oldest clock tower has rung out for the first time in almost a century and a half.

“Old South Meeting House, the Puritan church where Benjamin Franklin was baptized and the gathering place where the Boston Tea Party was planned, has been silent since 1876, after the brick building was nearly destroyed in the Great Boston Fire,” the station explained on its web site.

All that changed last month, after the colonial-era tower clock was hooked up to ring hourly, using a bronze bell cast by Paul Revere in 1801.

The bell had been hanging in the First Baptist Church in Westborough, Mass. But that church has closed, and now the bell tolls in the 283-year-old meeting house that was, in its heyday, the largest building in colonial Boston.

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