The large bell which was cast in 1847 for the Park Hill Presbyterian Mission Church, at Park Hill, Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, is one of the oldest in Oklahoma. The Reverend Samuel A. WORCESTER was in charge of the Park Hill Mission from 1836 until his death in 1859. The church, which stood at some distance from the mission home and school buildings, was built of brick, the first brick church in the Cherokee Nation, if not in Indian Territory. A bell was greatly desired and contributions were sought. It has been said that Principal Chief John ROSS and George M. MURRELL were principal contributors. The first fifty dollars collected for the bell fund was delivered to the Reverend Mr. Worcester by two of the young ladies of the locality, Miss Ann E. Worcester, and Miss E. Jane Ross. Miss Worcester was a daughter of the missionary and his first wife, Mrs. Ann Orr Worcester, and Miss Ross was a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John G. Ross. Each had completed her education in institutions in Vermont and Pennsylvania, respectively. During several years Miss Worcester taught in the Park Hill Presbyterian Mission, and Miss Ross became a member of the faculty of the Cherokee National Female Seminary soon after its completion and the beginning of school work early in the fifties of the nineteenth century, and was a teacher at the Seminary when it burned, April 10, 1887.
When a sum of money sufficient with which to pay for the bell was realized the order for its casting was made and in due course of time the bell was completed, shipped and received at Park Hill, after having been hauled overland and in all probability from Fort Gibson, to which point steamboats carried freight up the Arkansas and Grand rivers to the landing in vicinity of the Iron Mountain Railway bridge of today (1937).
The bell was hung in the belfry of the brick church at Park Hill, there to remain until the breaking out of the Civil War. At that period the Reverend Stephen FOREMAN, Presbyterian minister, resident near the mission, had the bell carried to a place of safety so the inference is, for when the conflict closed and the Reverend Mr. Foreman returned to his home, he brought forth the bell and placed it in the belfry of a plank building which he had fitted up for church purposes. This church in the woods is often referred to as the "Foreman Church", though in reality the Park Hill Presbyterian Church. In this old building, in September 1884, was opened the Park Hill Presbyterian mission school.
Upon the surface of the bell was the inscription: "Reverend S. A. Worcester, D. D., Park Hill Mission, 1847" and lower down the scriptural quotation: "Holiness to the Lord."
The Reverend Stephen FOREMAN died December 9, 1881, and his funeral was held in the old church on the afternoon of the 10th, a very cold day. The funeral sermon was delivered by the Reverend Leonidas DOBSON, a Presbyterian minister of much eloquence.
On a cold morning in January, 1886, a school boy filled a stove in a new schoolroom recently built at the south end of the original building, the stove pipe became red hot and the building caught fire and quickly became a mass of flames. The bell fell into the burning timbers and planks and was melted into a shapeless mass. This metal was sent to the Andrew McNeeley Bell Company, West Troy, New York, original casters of the bell, and it was recast with the same inscriptions and now hangs in the belfry of the Park Hill Presbyterian Church, Park Hill, Oklahoma.
The bell and other information comes from Miss E. Jane Ross, deceased. S. W. Ross and I personally remember some of the facts.
Submitted to OKGenWeb by
Gloria <gloria.bidinger@bonwell.com>
03-2000.