Butler Church Bell

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. There's a bell sitting in Freestone County, and it has one of those histories that starts on water and ends up ringing over dry land. The marker says the bell is said to have come from a riverboat.

Not just any riverboat, mind you, but the S. A. Ruthven, which plied the Trinity River until it was sunk in 1873 at Parker's Bluff.

Now, let that settle for a moment. A riverboat, working the Trinity, gone to the bottom in 1873. Whatever happened that day at Parker's Bluff, the S.

A. Ruthven didn't come back up. But something did.

That bell. Somehow, Butler Church acquired it, and for many years, that bell did what bells are meant to do. It called people.

It marked time. It probably made the kind of sound that carries across flat country and gets into your memory. Then came 1963, and the church was razed.

Gone. And with the building gone, the bell could've just... disappeared into someone's field or rusted quiet. But Mrs.

Clay Burkhart purchased it. And then, in 1964, she donated it to the county museum. A bell that survived a sinking, outlasted a church, and found its way into the keeping of Freestone County.

Some things just refuse to be lost.

What the marker says

Said to have come from riverboat "S. A. Ruthven", which plied Trinity River until it was sunk in 1873 at Parker's Bluff. Butler Church acquired bell and used it for many years. In 1963, after the church was razed, Mrs. Clay Burkhart purchased bell, donated it to county museum in 1964.