Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 195, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1915 — LOBERTU BELL OF THE WEST [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LOBERTU BELL OF THE WEST

THE great "Liberty Bell of the West’’—the bell that 137 years ago tolled out the news of American supremacy in the vast frontier territory of the Mississippi valley—now lies almost forgotten by the outside world in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the little village of New Kaskaskia, IIL, writes Dean Halliday in the Chicago Evening Post. Next to the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia the “Kaskie bell,’’ as it is known hereabouts, is the most historic bell in the country. It is older than the Liberty Bell, now on its way to San Francisco; older by ten years'. Two years, almost to an hour, after the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia had proclaimed the freedom of the thirteen colonies, the great bell of Old Kaskaskia rang out with the glad tidings that a determined band of Kentucky backwoodsmen, under the leadership of George Rogers Clark, had captured Fort Gage, at the foot of the bluffs a few miles to the east, and had forced the English to haul down their flag. Rang for Claris's Triumph. With the echoes of the great bell still reverberating through the valley, the American flag was run up over the fort and the great frontier country became part of the United States of America The bell rang out again in triumph as Clark’s force marched from the fort and took over Old Kaskaskia, then the territorial capital. It is 25 years since the bell boomed out for the last time —one night in 1890. when the Mississippi, swollen to the flood point, broke through the cut-off and swept over the town. It was the warning of the bell that night that saved many lives. Several years later, when an attempt was made to have the bell sent to Chicago to be exhibited at the Columbian exposition, members of the surviving families of the old days objected. The priest in charge —Father Ferlan —was willing, but his little flock would not have it. When a committee came from Chicago to get the bell they were driven off with guns. Stolen at Night. But a week or two later, in the dead of night, the bell was stolen. Ferried across the river by men whose identity has never been revealed, it was loaded onto a train just as dawn was breaking and started on its journey to Chicago. It was In 1741 that word was carried to France that the Jesuits had penetrated far to the west in the new America and on the banks of a mighty river had established a church. To show his pleasure, the king, Louis XV, ordered a great bronze bell to be cast and shipped over the seas to the hardy priests. On it was inscribed that it was for the little church ip Illinois and “a gift of the king.” The bell arrived at the little church in Kaskaskia —Cascasquia, the Jesuits called it—in 1742. Brave, hardy folk were those early French settlers, with a few scattered English. There were the Menards, the Sauciers, the Vigos, the Lamarches, the Bonds, the Morrisons and the Edgars. Col. Pierre Menard was the grand seigneur—the “first man” of Kaskie, and his was the "big house.’’ The Menard home always was open, and'

there the weddings, parties and balls and fetes were held, and on the “grand occasions’’ the great bronze bell, four feet in height, rang out from the tower on the old church. At that time Kaskaskia was situated on a peninsula that stretched south between the Mississippi and the Okaw rivers. The town lay on a bit of land known as Ragged island. From a French settlement the town passed into the hands of the English and then became the capital of the then mighty territory of Illinois. In turn, in 1778, it passed from the English to tho Americans, the mighty clangor of the bell proclaiming the joyful news. Kaskaskia flourished. There the assembly met, and with it the social life of the old French families became renowned. Night after night the Menard house blazed with lights, and guests danced while the Menard slaves spread the big tables in the banquet halls. Warned of Great Flood. It ■was on su»h a night—ln the spring of 1890 —that the floods came and the Mississippi broke through the cut-off to the north and a wave of water seeking a new course for the river bed swept over the town. The parish priest managed to reach the church tower and ring out a brief warning, and then the church crumbled and was partly swept away in the swirling, muddy waters. Nothing daunted the Kaskaskians. They moved some five miles to the other side of the island and started the town of New Kaskaskia. There the Church of the Immaculate Conception was rebuilt and there the bell, rescued from the hungry river, was taken. The new Kaskaskians are "renters” from the outside. To them the great bell is just 750 pounds of bronze, and so it stands, cracked and corroded, in its ill-lighted vestibule—the great “Liberty Bell of the West.”

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