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Show OLD BELLS IN NEW YORK, (vro Metal Messengers Whose Tones Havi Sounded to Many Generations. Whether it be duo to patriotio o? poetic instincts it is nevertheless true that a famous old bell always arouses a reminiscent feeling. Its very presenoo suggests a story the glad cry of liber-ty, liber-ty, tha joyous peals of wedding festivi ties, the somber touo of funeral prooes oions. Weather stained and hoary, an old bell seems like a mossenger of fate. Hence it is not to be wondered at that the bell in the yard of the Collegiate church, at Fifth avenue and Twenty uinth street, daily attracts a throng ol inquiring faces, closely pressed against the high iron railing surrounding tho church. From tho quaint Latin inscription on Ibo bell one learns that it was pent in 1795 by the people of Amsterdam as a gift offering to tho North church in New York, thou at Fulton and William streets, where it had been erected in 1628. Hanging high above the city, at Forty-eighth street and Fifth avonuo, is another link that binds us to tho past This great bell bears this Dutch inscription: inscrip-tion: "Een leegat aan de Needordeutscbo Kirko, Niew York, 1731." It appears from tho old will of Colo-nel Colo-nel Abraham do Peyster that he ordered a bell to be made in Holland for the Middle church, then occupying the site of tho old fort at the Battery. The people peo-ple of Holland wero so pleased at being thus remembered by one of thoir nam-bor nam-bor in America that a great number ol coins wero thrown into the smelting pot which contained tho metal for the boll as an evidence of their appreciation. apprecia-tion. During tho Revolution the. Middle ohurch was put to strange uses. Re moving the pulpit, gallery, pews and flooring, tho British dragoons converted it into a riding academy. John Oothout was granted permission from Commander in Chief Lord Howe to removo the Do Peyster boll to a place of safety. Accordingly, in the most unobtrusive un-obtrusive manner possible, the boll was sent to Chambersburg, Pa. When peace was restored, the boll was hung in the steeple of the Middle church, afterward leased to the federal government for poswffico purposes, and which many remember as the old Post-office Post-office building. A little more journeying journey-ing and the De Peyster boll reached itr present haven. The Collegiate consistory carefully preserve the relics of their sovera churches. A pewter plato bearing tho date 1769 and giving a history of the old North church is stowed away with a charter granted in 1696 by William HI empowering them to incorporate themselves in New York. Here, too, Is zealously guarded the old will ol John Harpending, now yollow with age, bequeathing, in 1723, much of his land to the Collegiate corporation. Now Yk Herald. |