Friday, September 16, 2011

Vigilant Bell Removed From Station...











Ken Nehf Sr. and Charlie Myers check out the bell up close.
Henry McShane & Co. Baltimore, Md. 1844


Tuesday (September 13, 2011) morning I set out on the bike for my weekly trip to Shippensburg to photograph the two building construction sites. I stopped and got a few photos of the Vigilant building and was heading down King Street when I noticed a group of men setting on the steps of the old Barbour Funeral home. As I was riding by they pointed to the Vigilant station and the work going on there. I just got lucky that I showed up as Brechbill & Helman the Vigilant's general contractors were about to remove the bell from the tower above the building. Not wanting to miss some history and a chance to see the bell up close I stopped and photograph this event. There was about 10 guys watching many with strong roots to the Viggies, three generations of Nehf's, two generations of Myers's J.D. Byers and a few others.

The information on one side of the bell is posted with the photo, the other side says Vigilant Fire Co. organized Feby. 22, 1843. The bell will be cleaned up and placed in the the new buidling when completed. For some history of the bell click this link for a previous post. This bell is like a fire apparatus bell having been in all three buidlings the Vigilant's have occupied. I am just glad I got to witness this event.
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2 comments:

  1. SparkySeptember 16, 2011 at 7:49 AM

    Thanks for the history lesson and post. It will be nice to see this bell in the new station...

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownSeptember 30, 2011 at 1:21 PM

    Brad,

    Great to see you posting again! Now that you are I will be checking back in more often. Great shots of the project to remove the bell.

    Cincy Bill

    ReplyDelete

No comments can be made anonymous, you need not sign in but you must sign a name or they will be deleted. This is just to seperate fact from fiction and keep it from being anything like whacker fest pa fire.

I am sorry to add the word verification but recently 88 of my post were spammed in one night. I do not have the time to correct that many post again, so this will eliminate the bullshit.