Trio is going to great heights in search of the bells of Norwich

Norwich - In the organ loft at the 1869 church on Franklin Street, City Historian Dale Plummer's voice echoes from above.

"I reached the hatch," he shouts down the ladder.

"There's another ladder and another hatch," Pastor Glenn Husted of the Gospel Foundation of New England, Inc., calls back.

"Oh," answers Plummer, a bit apprehensively.

But by now, a climb like this is no "fire bell in the night" for Plummer and another local historian, David Oat. Since March, the two 60-somethings have been climbing dark, tight church steeples, firehouse hose towers, cramped spiral staircases and rickety ladders to get a close-up look at the bells of Norwich.

Once invaluable sources of news and fire warnings and incessant regulators of workers' daily routines, the bells of Norwich have attained the status of background noise amid the din of traffic. Some have fallen silent.

Plummer and Oat hope to bring the bells to life again.

Musician and sound expert Kevin Hawkins is working with them. Hawkins has been fascinated by bells since he was a teenager, but because he is blind he skips the climbs that take his partners up the steep, dusty stairs and ladders. He stays on the ground to record the sounds of the bells as passers-by and neighbors would hear them.

The climb on this morning at the Franklin Street church proves easy but a bit disappointing.

"I got it!" Plummer calls down as he lifts the final hatch. That signals Oat to start climbing. They made a rule that only one person at a time can be on a ladder.

The relatively small bell that rings every Sunday for services of the Franklin Street Ministries and the Cornerstone International Church, which share the building, has no markings to identify its maker, age or origin. The men run their hands over it for a few minutes and peer inside.

Plummer guesses it's the church's original bell. He will contact St. Mark's Lutheran Church, which formerly owned the building.

"Bells were fairly big deals," Plummer said. "They had to be ordered and transported and put into place. It's possible they still have the records."

Hawkins wants to create a CD of all the working bells in Norwich buildings. Many churches have switched to electronic ringing systems. "We won't exclude the electronic ones," Hawkins says, but mostly he is after the real thing.

Oat's interest lies in the histories of the buildings and the bells. He and Plummer will write a booklet to accompany the CD.

And on Jan. 1, 2013, Plummer wants to re-enact the 150th anniversary of the city's reaction to President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves. The bells of Norwich rang for a solid hour on Jan. 1, 1863. Plummer has read accounts that the bells, along with a 100-gun salute, spooked horses and caused livestock stampedes.

"Maybe we won't do it for an hour this time," he said.

How many bells?

Jan. 1, 2013, might seem a long way off, but the three men feel pressed for time.

Every Wednesday, Plummer, 60, and Oat, 63, schedule a "bell tour" at a church, firehouse, mill or other building known to have a bell. They now automatically turn their eyes upward. Does the firearms factory on Franklin Street have a bell, or the former Methodist Church on West Town Street? Did Norwich Free Academy ever have a bell?

"We've just scratched the surface with this," Plummer said.

They are asking the public for help finding bells, whether they be in lofts or someone's basement.

With each tower climb, Plummer and Oat inspect the bell and its mount. Bells now out of service might need oil or new bearings or stronger supports before they can be tested. They write down inscriptions they find on the bells.

"It's exciting, sometimes terrifying to get up there," Plummer said. "The views are terrific and the bells are fascinating. Each time is an adventure."

St. Patrick's Cathedral uses an electronic ring, but the bell is intact. At the base of the steeple, Plummer and Oat face a 2½-story, free-standing ladder. Plummer ascends first. "I swear I heard him praying up there," Oat says. They have to climb two more ladders to reach the bell.

Each bell has a story

On his way to St. Mary's Church in Greeneville, Plummer stops to buy a tape measure at A.P. Savage Supply hardware store on North Main Street. The store is housed in the original St. Mary's building, possibly the oldest Catholic church building in eastern Connecticut.

At St. Mary's Church, secretary Betsy Everett opens a narrow door at the rear corner of the sanctuary. Plummer shines his flashlight up a three-story shaft. The ladder is bolted to the corner, straight up. Red brick and mortar dust rain down as Plummer ascends.

He and Oat are covered in fine, red brick powder as they maneuver along the wooden platform to measure the bell.

Church history says this bell was moved here from the original 1831 church, but the surface is etched 1937 and reads: "Donated by Dennis Bowen in the honor and glory of God." Plummer speculates that Bowen donated the money to move the bell.

The oldest Norwich church bell belongs to the oldest church building, the 1801 First Congregational Church. An early 19th-century farmer could hear this bell and learn that someone had died. The ring pattern might reveal whether it was a man, woman or child, helping the listener determine exactly who had died, says Oat, who is the church historian.

A steep ladder with rungs 18 inches apart leads to a second ladder to the belfry. The walls bear the scrawls of visitors in 1884, 1913 and 1916. The historians resist the urge to add their names.

Plummer tugs at the huge pulley wheel that guides the manual rope. He frowns as it wobbles.

"This is probably going to need some help at some point," he said. The bell was made in 1826 by George Holbrook, known to have been an apprentice to Paul Revere.

Plummer discovered that the bell in the former Unitarian Universalist Church on Broadway, now the Fount of Salvation Missionary Church, came to Norwich after an uprising in Spain in 1833, when many churches in Spain were sacked. One of several bells salvaged and shipped to New York for sale ended up in the 1910 Unitarian church, moved there from the original Unitarian church on Main Street.

"I'm looking for what ship it came in on," Plummer says. "Maybe we can find the location of other bells on that ship."

Saving the sounds

Hawkins' bell recordings depend mostly on weather. Even a 5-mph wind can kill a recording, he says.

One recent Sunday morning, he set up outside his own church, Grace Episcopal Church in Yantic. The 1902 church has four bells and is the only one in eastern Connecticut that still practices the art of change ringing, using mathematical patterns, he says. Instructions are on the wall for 24 different patterns.

One weekday evening Hawkins and Plummer walked through a small wooded area to a cleared spot on the cliff behind Central Baptist Church. They are there to record the City Hall bell.

Plummer points Hawkins' outstretched arm at the bell to orient him. At Hawkins' direction, Plummer set up two microphones and covers each with white, fluffy batting to deaden wind noise.

"We're about 20 feet from the edge," he assured Hawkins. They were level with the bell at Central Baptist Church.

When Central Baptist rang its bell for the city's 350th celebration last year, the pulley wheel jammed, leaving the bell stuck in the ringing position. It could cost up to $6,000 to repair it, giving the Friends of the Norwich Bells another mission.

"We're hoping we can raise awareness with this project and maybe we can help organizations raise money to repair some of these bells," Hawkins says.

His digital recorder announces it's three minutes before the hour. An ambulance siren blares but quickly screams up Broadway and out of range.

"I wanted some ambiance, but that's not what I had in mind," Hawkins says.

Dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong.

"Got it," Hawkins says, confirming the recording through his headphones.