History, Habits Clash in Bells

On days that Harvard’s non-denominational church holds memorial services, Richard D. Campbell, The Memorial Church’s sexton, climbs up narrow and steep staircases, ascends a thin metal ladder, and smashes a half-ton clapper into Harvard’s two-ton bell, high up in the church tower. Down below, three dorms full of freshman students cover their ears and try to fall back asleep.

Since the mid 1960s, Memorial Church’s bell has rung mostly on an automated timer—from 8:40 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. to call congregants for the morning service, at 9 a.m. to mark the first class, and every hour until 4 p.m. on Mondays through Fridays to mark the changing of the classes. On Saturdays, the bell rings as if it were a weekday, but stop by 1 p.m. because the University holds some Saturday classes, according to Reverend Peter J. Gomes, who is Plummer professor of Christian morals and The Memorial Church’s Pusey minister. On Sundays, the bell rings from 10:55 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. to mark the morning service and is silent the rest of the day, Gomes says.

Up in the bell tower, describing his work with the bells, Campbell laughs. “Can you believe that every year freshmen students complain about the bells?” he says.

The job that he finds exhilarating and beautiful is hated by some freshmen students who live within close range of the noise that often wakes them at 8:40 a.m.—a time they consider out of touch with a college student’s schedule.

But Gomes describes the bell as a Harvard institution and stresses that the timing of its ringing has both historical and religious significance.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

Freshmen frustration with the bell’s schedule has led to the creation of a group on facebook.com called “Students For the Destruction of the 8:40 Bell.” In its description, creator Lily G. Bellow ’09, a resident of Weld Hall, writes: “Damn you, bell. Damn you.”

“I didn’t realize how widespread the problem was until I made the Facebook group and saw how many people joined it,” says Bellow, whose group now boasts 55 members.

Olivia A. Benowitz ’09, a resident of Thayer Hall and a member of the facebook.com group, says that her hatred of the bells is spilling over into other parts of her life.

“[The bells] kind of make me hate God,” she says. “They ruin my spirituality. It’s horrible and heinous. I feel bad for anyone who has to ring them. They are the purveyors of a misery that never ends.”

Although Benowitz says that she appreciates the planning of a 8:45 a.m. prayer service every day, she sees the bells as religious coercion.

“We have no choice but to be woken up by the bells,” she says. “I don’t want to pray at 8:40 in the morning. I would be very happy praying when I am more attentive and awake.”

But Gomes says the students “just have to put up with it.”

“Freshmen may not appreciate that the bell is ringing for them, but after nine months they move on,” he says. “We will not change the bells just to accommodate late sleeping habits of freshmen in the College.”

Gomes stresses that even students who don’t practice religion should be respectful of the bell’s 8:40 a.m. tintinnabulations.

“You are supposed to understand that someone is coming to worship and praying for you,” says Gomes. “We can’t base everything on what everyone believes in.”

“One of the theories is that the noise drives away the devil,” he adds. “You make that kind of noise to scare away evil forces.”

He also says that the bell performs an important secular function.

“I can’t think of a college or university where time is not governed by the ringing of bells,” Gomes says. “Bells are part of the vocabulary of most American colleges.”

Not all share Gomes’ feelings about the bells’ importance.

“It’s the most obnoxious thing ever, and we definitely want it stopped,” says Jennifer C. Sullivan ’09, a resident of Canaday Hall.

But some students use the bell as their personal alarm clock. Alison D. Nugent ’09 says she wakes up with the 8:40 a.m. bells and tries to shower and be back in her room by the next set of bells at 9 a.m. During reading period, when the bells do not ring, she says she almost missed her class because she is so used to leaving her room with the 1 p.m. bells in order to arrive at Sever Hall perfectly on time five minutes later.

The bells don’t bother Sean P. Bala ’09, a Thayer resident, who points out of his window to the bell tower.

“It’s like history staring at you right in the face,” he says. “Everything in this campus is so old that it tells a story, and I see the bells as a part of that story.”

WAKE-UP CALL

According to Gomes, bells have been a feature of Harvard’s campus throughout its history, stemming from the tradition at Oxford and Cambridge of using bells to mark time and recognize solemn occasions.

“Christians have used bells for thousands of years. Time in western Christian civilization was a Christian concept. Days were marked by prayers,” Gomes says.

He says that, in ancient times, bells “were the main form of communication.” Towns would ring victory bells, fire bells, worships bells, and bells for many other occasions. When prayer became an important part of the day, bells marking services became major time markers.

Until 1933, Harvard’s bell not only marked the time for the changing of classes every hour, but was also used as a rising bell that woke students at 6 a.m. in the winter and at 7 a.m. in the summer.

From the 1640s until 1886, church bells also rang twice daily in Appleton Chapel to mark the University’s mandatory services. In the morning, the bell rang from 7:40 a.m. to 7:45 a.m. to give everyone time to arrive at the service, which began promptly at 7:45 a.m.

Attending chapel twice a day “was part of the run of being a student at Harvard and absence affected your disciplinary status,” Gomes says. “The president attended those service so you really had to come.”

In 1886, church services were made voluntary and the service was moved an hour later in an effort to attract students who might skip an early service if allowed to do so.

Memorial Church’s bell was donated by former University President A. Lawrence Lowell, Class of 1877, in the 1930s, in memory of students who died in World War I. Its inscription reads: “In memory of voices that are hushed.” The church’s bell became Harvard’s official marker of time in 1956.

Twice in the bell’s history, the half-ton clapper came flying out from the bell while swinging and landed on the church roof. Approximately three years ago, a cable was connected to the clapper to secure it in place. Just in case this fails, there is an extra clapper waiting in the platform beneath the bell and rigging blocks underneath the bell to pull it up into place.

Before the bell was automated, a rope extended from the clapper up in the bell down into the basement of the building. Instead of climbing up to the bell, the sexton would pull with all his might on the rope and would often be carried up to the ceiling with the weight of the bell clapper.

These days, the timer makes the actual bell move, which causes the clapper inside to swing as well. A metal piece on the chain holding the bell kicks the bell back in the other direction at exactly the right time. The chimes will usually last longer than the timer is set for, because the heavy bell takes some time to stop moving.

On University holidays and on memorial days, the church’s bell is still hand-rung by Campbell, who has become an expert over the past 10 years at climbing through the church’s catwalk on narrow beams to reach steep metal staircases and cluttered platforms with large windows. On the highest platform, he climbs a thin metal ladder that finally brings him up to a door that opens onto to a small space high above the Yard.

During memorial services at the Church, about seven to 10 times a year, the names of the deceased are read. Campbell, often shivering in the cold, stands in the corner of the bell’s platform, shielded from the bitter wind by the white walls, with an earpiece to hear the names being called down in the church below and a watch in his hand. The second the names are finished, he must grab the red clapper in his hand and smash it into the side of the bell every 10 seconds for two minutes.

Because it is easy to lose track of how many times he needs to ring the bell, Campbell will often use a piece of metal or an old screw and mark the inside of the bell with small scratch lines in a tally.

“When you’re under here it’s extremely loud, especially under the bell,” says Campbell. He wears earmuffs to protect his ears, but he says he can still hear the bell and loves it. “By doing it every 10 seconds it really does sound pretty good,” he says.

Besides having to worry about correct timing, Campbell needs to make sure that he uses an equal amount of force each time he hits the clapper into the side of the bell, because Gomes will be listening intently below.

“Peter picks it up like you can’t believe,” Campbell says. “He listens and counts. He can tell who is ringing the bell just by how much force they use.”

The last time the bell was rung by hand was Nov. 11, in memory of Harvard students who died in Korea and Vietnam.

On the 300th anniversary of Harvard College, in September 1968, the bell rang 300 times early in the morning, before the usual 9 a.m. bell. On Sept. 11, 2001, the bell tolled to call the University to a multi-faith vigil for the lives lost as a result of the terrorist attack, according to the Harvard Gazette.

Even though freshman students may complain about the noise emanating from Memorial Church, some alums, too, count the bells as significant.

J. Barry Vaughn ’78 wrote about his 25th reunion in an essay called “Nostalgia and Remembrance,” in which he highlighted the role of the church bells in Harvard culture.

“Then, suddenly, in the midst of this orgy of nostalgia, the Memorial Church bell summons us to remember that thirty-three of our classmates have died,” he wrote. “It tolls not only for the thirty-three men and women whose names we shall soon hear, the bell tolls also for us.”

—Staff writer Shifra B. Mincer can be reached at smincer@fas.harvard.edu.