The eight bells in the steeple of St. Michael's Church, at the corner of Broad and Meeting Streets, have made the Atlantic crossing several times. They were cast in London in 1764 and shipped to the new church. In 1782 the departing British carried them off as a prize of war, and a London merchant bought them and sent them back. Two of them later cracked and returned to England to be recast. In the Civil War the bells were sent inland to Columbia for safekeeping, and they cracked when the shed holding them burned in the fire that swept that city in February 1865. Five of the eight are named for orders of angels and three for archangels.
After the war the metal was salvaged and shipped to the Whitechapel foundry in London, the original maker, to be recast in the old moulds. Dove's Guide for church bell ringers dates seven of the bells to 1866 and the tenor to 1880, all from Mears and Stainbank, the Whitechapel firm of the day. They were back in the steeple by 1868, but they were hung so they could only be chimed, not swung and rung.
After Hurricane Hugo in 1989 they went to London again, for new fittings and a new timber frame, and Whitechapel rehung them in 1993. Change ringers have rung them full circle since. The tenor, named Michael, weighs about 1,943 pounds. The bells are written into the score of the opera Porgy and Bess.
Getting there
32.7763, -79.9309
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