Historical Narrative
“Our lives are regulated by Hathorn bell”.
It was in 1857 when Jonathan Davis donated five hundred dollars for the bell that would become known as Hathorn Hall bell. During this time, Hathorn Hall was used as a library, chapel, lecture room and office building. With this being said, Hathorn has been the center of campus since the beginning of its existence when it was the sole building to Bates College’s name. The bell itself, is an enormous, 1,000 pound bell with inscriptions that says,
Henry N Hooper & Company, Boston
Maine State Seminary
Presented by
Jonathan Davis
of Webster
1857
The bell was an integral part of campus as it was used during athletic competitions, school debates and as an alarm for the entire campus. Furthermore, it was used as a way to gather the community and keep everyone together even during the hectic school years.
The bell ringers were in charge of making sure the bells went off at the correct times. This job consisted of ringing the college bell every hour from 7 am to 5 pm. It also gathered the community for chapel ceremonies every week. The Laws of the Institution Chapter VI Admissions and Duties of Students Section 30 firmly states, “Students shall attend the appointed public prayers in the chapel and shall be in their places when the bell shall cease tolling or shall be considered and noted as absent. And after the bell shall commence tolling the students in the chapel shall observe perfect quiet, abstaining from whispering, reading, studying, writing, and everything not in keeping with the sacredness of the place and occasion. The students shall seat themselves in the chapel in the order appointed by the President, or shall be noted as absent. Any irregularities of the above mentioned charter, either in the chapel or at church, shall be marked as misdemeanors.” Chapel was an important part of the community as everyone gathered on Sundays for the prayers. The bell was also useful in everyday life because students would be marked absent if they were not in class by the time the bell rang. One student went as far as saying “our lives are regulated by Hathorn bell” due to the fact that the bell was rung on average 19 times a day.
To become a bell ringer, students were required to go through an application process and be appointed by the deans. The deans looked for a student who was going to be dependable and responsible. Most likely this also meant that the bell ringer was in good academic standings due to the fact that they arrived three minutes late to class and left three minutes early in order to complete their duties. The Admissions and Duties of Student handbook states in Section 47, “A student, upon his application, shall be appointed to ring and have sole charge of the chapel bell, and it shall be his duty to see that it is not molested in any way by others; and if any student shall at any time ring the bell, unless by request of the Faculty or bell ringer, or make any attempt to disturb it, he may be severely punished by the faculty.” This shows that the bell ringer was a responsible student who did not take advantage of his responsibility and was aware of the consequences. If appointed a bell ringer, the students lived in a single room in Hathorn Hall. These students spent most of their time in their room due to the fact that the bell needed to be rung every hour. If a student were required to do this today it is likely that they would set a reminder on their iphone for the top of the hour. This shows how much time and energy the bell ringers in the early 1900’s put into this job because they needed to constantly be looking at the clock so that they would not miss the hour. If a student missed the hour it affected the entire campus. The lack of technology was also apparent when an article in the school newspaper from 1928-1929 notes that gas, steam heat, and electricity had been totally unknown when it was first built. I feel as though students from the early 1900’s would be upset to find out that the bell is now rung by a machine because a student from 1956 said, “to the Bates student and the Bates graduate Hathorn bell is a symbol, a symbol which should be taken care of by a student rather than a cold machine.” Students honored the bell because it was with direct relationship to members of the community. It was a way to personally bond the entire community together.
While looking through the Musky Archives to research information on the Hathorn Bell there was a lack of information about the female students. In every article addressing the students perspective as being a bell ring it was addressing male students. I can see why this would have happened because the school was originally male only. When the school became coeducational, gender stereotypes were very common in the early 1900s. By this I mean that men were expected to be strong and physically fit while women were expected to be neat and orderly. Because of this, I assume the school wanted a man to ring the bell because of the heavy weights involved. The bell weighed 1,000 pounds and it was turned by a four-foot wheel and heavy rope. The bell was so large that by pulling the bell rope once, the bell would ring twice due to the pull of the string and the bell’s own momentum. Furthermore, in order to reach the bell the students were required to reach the bell by climbing two long ladders. The first one rose perpendicularly through a three-foot by 18-inch passage. Next the students were obligated to reach the other ladder through using beams. Needless to say, it was a difficult and physically demanding task to be a bell ringer. While thinking about gender with regards to this physically demanding task I argue that perhaps the female students would have been just as good if not better than the male students. Stereotypically, females are known to be more petite therefore it would be easier for them to climb through the stairwells. Furthermore, women are more clean and responsible so it is possible that they could be more dependable with regards to the hourly bell ringing.
Over the years the importance of the bell has changed. In 1956 the bell rang at 6:30am to wake campus up as well as at 5:20pm to prepare students for dinner. Because of this we can see that students were on much stricter schedules. Unlike today, students were told what they had to be doing at all points during the day. I think the independence we have today is useful because it prepares us for the real world when we must create our own schedules.
Something that very few students were able to visualize was the view of campus from the bell. Our group took a trip to view the bell first hand and we were amazed with the breathtaking view. It is a unique way to experience the campus yet very few have actually seen it. Perhaps this was due to the difficulty to reaching the destination or the fact that one must enter a student’s room to get to the bell. What we do know however is that those special bell-ringers who were able to view the campus from this special view did not take it for granted. A bell ringer from 1936-1937 recalls “To the north, smoke blue hills pock-marked with white snow line the leaded-gray horizon; to the west, Mt. David looms far larger than when seen from ground level; to the south the great Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul rises above the homes and mills of Lewiston as a rock from the sea, while the mills and drab little homes jostle each other by the flat silvered Androscoggin; and the buildings of Bates are all seen easily—the glass-hatted cage of the Athletic Building, the beaked and gabled roof of Chase Hall, and the warm brown walls of the chapel.”