For Appointments/tours at Shrine call 520.576-9653
Mary Undoer of Knots Byzantine Catholic Shrine
Our Revere Bell
Mount Lemmon has a working Paul Revere Bell located at the Shrine to Mary Undoer of Knots. Some Mount Lemmon residents have lived in towns or villages where a bell was part of life and many have traveled abroad and experienced the daily ringing of church bells throughout the world. In this article, I would like to describe the exciting possibilities this unique bell brings to the Mount Lemmon community. This is a bell that tolled at the passing of many of our great American presidents like Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR and even JFK. The bell rang out with great joy at the close of the American Civil War in 1865, WWI in 1918, and WWII for VE and VJ days in 1945!
Steve Marshall Interview
The Mount Lemmon bronze bell is an original, authentic Paul Revere Bell. Cast—according to church secretary records—in 1826 by Paul Revere’s partner and son, Joseph Warren Revere and—according to public records—purchased in 1833 by the Universal Congregationalist Church in Chicopee Falls, MA. The Chicopee Falls United Methodist-New Hope Church subsequently acquired it. Unfortunately, this church was demolished due to structural problems on October 11, 2007. It was given to and stored by the Ludlow United Methodist Church in one of their member's garage. The Mary Undoer of Knots Foundation acquired the bell in April of 2016.
The Bell in Chicopee Falls, MA prepared for shipment to AZ.
The Congregational Church of
Chicopee Falls, MA 1950s
A history of bells
Bells of course have throughout history provided the time of day for the populace. Historically, the use of the bell by churches was written in England about as early as the end of the 7th century by Bede the Venerable, and in the 10th century, St. Dunstan, considered by many as the most famous of all the Anglo-Saxon saints, hung bells in most of the churches in England.
Historically among nations, Russia has always been in contention for the largest bells, and the greatest number of them. “A bell in Moscow is 19 feet high, 63 feet 11 inches round its margin, and weighs in at 443,772 pounds. ….One of the largest bells in the United States is the alarm bell on the city-hall of New-York, which weighs 23,000 pounds. The “Old Liberty Bell,” in Philadelphia, which was used to “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof,” though not a large bell, has a worldwide reputation. It was imported from England in 1752 (at White Chapel Foundry), but broken upon its first trial. It was then recast in Philadelphia, and again broken. A second time recast, it was placed in position in June 1753, and this bell was used until “on Monday, the 8th day of July, 1776, at 12 o’clock at noon, this very Bell rang out to the citizens of Philadelphia, the glad tidings, that a new nation had a few days before sprung into existence, proclaiming in language understood by every ear, All Men are Born Free and Equal. When the American forces left Philadelphia, in 1777, this bell was removed to Allentown PA, to keep it out of the hands of the British army. It was afterwards returned and used for fifty years, when it cracked.” And it remains so today.