Saturday, June 6, 2009

On A New Job

Last week I posted an article about the ringing of the Cumberland Valley fire bell, this one popped up on this date and since I was having problems finding an incident for the day I thought I would publish it. The article appeared in The Shippensburg Chronicle on June 8, 1911 and was referring to an incident that took place on this day June 6, 1911. The article is exactly as it appeared in the paper.

The old Vigilant Fire bell was aroused from its slumbers Tuesday morning very early, to do service in a new cause. Everybody in its vicinity was also awakened to enlist in the same cause and everybody was equally as ignorant as the bell as to what the cause was, for there certainly was no fire.

It developed in the course of time, that some one was supposed to be making a vigorous effort to rob the town’s bastile of some coveted possessions in the persons of three alleged chicken thieves.


A couple constables were guarding the lock-up and thought they saw some men prowling around the “jug,” and not knowing how many prowlers there were, rang the fire bell either to relieve their own nerves or to scare the rescuers away. Whatever the motive for ringing the bell some good citizens of Shippensburg finished the night some-what out of tune with the world in general.

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