DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just along for the ride. Now, every great story has something at its heart — and this one, the heart is made of silver and jewelry and a little bit of sacrifice. Soon after Fairfield Female College opened here in 1858, somebody looked around and said: we need a bell.
Not just any bell. A bell with tone. And they meant that literally.
The students themselves gave some of their own money — and their own jewelry — to be melted into the casting, so the bell would ring with something personal in it. The citizens of the area added several hundred dollars in silver on top of that. Several hundred dollars in silver.
For a bell. That tells you something about how seriously these folks took the whole enterprise. Now, this bell wasn't made around the corner.
It was cast in England. England. Then shipped across the Atlantic to Galveston, and from Galveston it came the rest of the way by ox-wagon.
You let that sit a moment. An ox-wagon hauling a bell all the way from the Gulf Coast, through Texas heat and Texas roads, which in those days were mostly just Texas. And when it finally arrived, the college officials took one look at the weight of the thing and made a decision that I think shows real wisdom — they built a special frame, right there on the front porch, just to hold it.
The bell was too heavy to go anywhere more ambitious, and nobody was going to argue with it. So it stood on that porch, ringing out over Fairfield for decades. Then came 1909.
The college buildings were torn down. An era ended, the way eras do, quietly and then all at once. But the bell — the bell didn't go anywhere.
It was given to the Methodist Church. And here's the part that lands like a good chord: it is still in use today. All that silver, all that jewelry, all those miles from England to Galveston to an ox-wagon to a front porch — still ringing.
Some things, once they find their voice, just don't quit.
What the marker says
Soon after Fairfield Female College opened here in 1858, plans were made to have a bell cast. The students gave some of their money and jewelry to give "tone" to the bell and the citizens added several hundred dollars in silver. The bell was made in England, then shipped to Galveston and hauled here by ox-wagon. Because of its great weight, college officials had the bell placed in a special frame on the front porch. When the college buildings were torn down in 1909, the bell was given to the Methodist Church, where it is still in use today.