Christopher Huffaker writes for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral was ready to rededicate its 10 bells in December, after refurbishing its steeple. Forty trash bags of guano had been cleared out, screens had been put up to keep out the pigeons, the bells had been safely rehung, and a new programmable system to play them had been installed after the 60-year-old electric keyboard had broken the previous year.
After work on the tower was finished, the new superintendent turned his attentions to a corner in the basement that had been used as a dumping site for building materials. Amid the debris of bags of cement and mortar, Ken Alexander found one crate too heavy to move. He pried open the box, made out of heavy hardwood planks, and found an 11th bell.
It had been made by the same long-closed Meneely Foundry, of Watervliet, N.Y., that manufactured the other 10 bells. As far as anyone knows, it never has been in the steeple. Maybe it was supposed to be, but the cathedral staff does not know that either.
Matthew Townsend is a Halifax-based freelance journalist and volunteer advocate for survivors of sexual misconduct in Anglican settings. He served as editor of the Anglican Journal from 2019 to 2021 and communications missioner for the Anglican Diocese of Quebec from 2019 to 2022. He and his wife recently entered catechism class in the Orthodox Church in America.
