The Many Lives of the Rutersville Bell
This historic bell has had a long, winding, and wet journey
The Rutersville Bell has been used for the past few decades as a marker of ceremonial importance and prestige at Southwestern. But the bell itself, being over 180 years old, has been involved in mischief and movement throughout its existence.
The bell was first used at one of Southwestern’s four root institutions, Rutersville College. Here, it hung as a crown above the Rutersville College building, which is pictured here as it was nearing completion in 1841. The bell served two main purposes here: one, as the pulse of the institution, alerting students when to wake and sleep, eat, and go to chapel, and two, for solemn ceremonies at the institution. It seems as though the bell’s main purpose today, use in ceremonies, also occurred at the beginning of its lifetime.
When the Rutersville College building was dismantled in 1895 and Southwestern was beginning to solidify its own identity apart from its four root institutions, the Rutersville Bell was transferred to the Methodist Episcopal Church of the Southern German Conference. It stayed here, dormant and unused for almost fifty years, until in 1943, when the bell was advertised for sale in Houston. The bell was purchased for Airline Baptist Church of Houston by Dr. D. E. Sloan, a former Southwestern student. Dr. D. E. Sloan claims that he bought the bell from the local Methodist preacher who attended to Rutersville within his circuit, and he got it from Otto Teitjen, the local mechanic and blacksmith. How Mr. Teitjen acquired the bell is unknown.
After being purchased, the Rutersville Bell was put back into use at the Airline Baptist Church until 1953, when the church built a new belfry in which the bell didn’t fit. When this occurred, three Houston Methodist preachers all inquired about purchasing the bell, hoping to bring it back to its Methodist roots. Even with these three offers, Dr. D. E. Sloan instead suggested that the Rutersville Bell be returned to Southwestern. He thought the bell would be better suited to live at the place that was made from Rutersville College, recognizing its tradition at the root institution.
When the bell was received by Southwestern, they did not put it into active use right away. President Finch stated in an Annual Report his intentions for memorializing the bell somewhere on campus, but this did not occur during his presidency. The bell was stored in the Physical Plant Warehouse for roughly 20 years. Throughout this time, the bell was… let's say “liberated”... by multiple students and campus groups for various periods of time. The bell weighed a whopping 300 lbs and was made of solid brass, so any effort to move it from place to place involved the coordinated efforts of a small army to manage it. The bell has been recorded as being present at some intramural football games throughout these two decades and was used by different groups. It was all in fun… until it wasn’t.
In 1973, to celebrate the 100th year of Southwestern in Georgetown, a museum of Southwestern artifacts and history was set up on the first floor of Mood Hall, called the Mood-Heritage Museum. When collecting materials for this space, the administration realized that the bell had been missing for an unknown amount of time. Much discussion occurred about the missing bell.
These discussions led to inquiries. Eventually, Ed Evans, Georgetown Merchant and friend of Southwestern, told the museum curators “of a bell which had been dragged out of the San Gabriel river by a local citizen.” Given the weight of the bell, I’m not sure about the logistics of this claim that a single individual recovered it, but that’s what has been recorded as occurring.
From this rumor, Basil Phillips and Judson S. Cluster (the two employees working on the museum) asked around town until they eventually found the bell. It turned out that the citizen who had fished the bell out of the San Gabriel River had the bell set up in their backyard.
When Philips and Custer arrived to identify the bell, they noted that it had been painted blue and white instead of shining its usual brass exterior. Rumor has it that the bell was painted and then thrown in the river as a fraternity prank, likely Phi Delta Theta, as their colors are blue and white--or another fraternity trying to frame them. But, how the Rutersville Bell became homed at the bottom of the San Gabriel River won’t ever be completely known.
After the bell was found by Southwestern staff, it was sold back to the institution by the finder for $325. Volunteers worked to restore the bell to its original brass exterior, also verifying that the bell was, in fact, the old Rutersville Bell.
Now, the Rutersville Bell is known by the student body mainly due to the part it plays in Matriculation, Presidential Inauguration, and Commencement practices. At these ceremonies, the bell is rung five times to represent Southwestern and each of its four root colleges. Through this practice, it is used as a symbol of starting and ending the university’s curriculum and studenthood. These practices seem timeless now, but they began only after the bell was restored in the 1970s.
Today, when not in use, the bell sits under the stairs in the Rockwell Rotunda of McCombs Campus Center (where this pin is located). Because of the bell’s requirement of being mobile from that location to the ceremonies it rings at, the bell is hung from a steel and wooden stand with wheels.
Overall, the Rutersville Bell has served many purposes and had varying degrees of desirability. It was trashed, given away, desired by many, sold, painted, stolen, and restored. Though the bell now sits under the stairs for most days out of the year gathering dust with no label or demarcation, the bell sure has had its fair share of mischief and movement.
And if you decide to follow this pin to its location on an average day and the bell is no longer there… well, you better get ready to start swimming.
