Historic Bethabara - Bell House at Bethabara

The Bell House (reconstructed)

This entry is a continuation of the series featuring the Moravian community of Bethabara - the first Moravian village in the southern colonies (1753). 

A bell was used in Bethabara to strike the hours and to call the people together for worship services - or emergencies. The first bell - the only one within 200 miles of Bethabara - frightened Cherokee Indians away from the fort in 1760. 

The bell was broken "into many pieces" in a storm later that year. A new bell, first placed in the Bell House, was moved in 1788 to the new Gemeinhaus, where it still hangs and rings today.
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An entry in the Bethabara Diary on April 8, 1766 reads:

"We found that one post of the tower in which the bell hangs had rotted badly, so the bell was taken down, the posts cut off at the bottom, and the tower placed temporarily near the carpenter shop so that the bell could still be rung."