Stolen bell saga a godsend for Gaspé parishioners
Thieves stole their bell, but set the small Gaspé community on an journey that they say gave them more
Three years ago, thieves stole the bell from Gaspé's Little Metis Presbyterian Church, and as word spread in the community, a minister came forward who launched a cross-country chain of connections working together to find a replacement.
The Métis-sur-Mer church was uniquely vulnerable to theft because it had initially been built without a bell, so the structure that came to house it stood alone.
It brought everybody together. It made us more aware, actually, of the history of this bell.- Ted Savage, church trustee
This made it possible for a truck or car to back right up to the bell tower.
Church trustee Ted Savage says someone must have climbed up the belfry with a ladder and thrown the 136-kilogram bell onto its dirt floor, breaking off the metal wheel that was once used to ring the bell.
It's the only thing they have left of the nearly century-old bell.
Its loss would mark the beginning of what Savage calls a nice story.
"It brought everybody together. It made us more aware, actually, of the history of this bell," he said.
The bell's past
Four decades later, a local man, J.R. Loudon, decided the community could not keep a church without a bell. He donated one, and had a steeple built that stands alone, off to the side of the church building.
The empty bell tower still had names scribbled inside its wooden walls — the remnant of the generations of children that once rang its bell.
"It's quite unique. It's quite lovely. I've never really seen anything quite like it," Savage said.
When their bell was whisked away, it took the 50-member congregation by complete surprise. They had never experienced vandalism before. But their shock slowly turned into search for a replacement.
Where to find another bell?
The congregation sent out the message across their connections in the Presbyterian community, in Canada and the United States, that they needed a new bell.
Finally, a former minister in Montreal, who was also a minister in Gaspé during the summer, knew someone in Alberta who knew of a church in the central town of Killam which had shut down.
The heavy bronze bell was shipped to Toronto where Little Metis' minister, Rev. Ian Ross McDonald, hauled his latest donation in the back of his car.
"It was hard to bring it in and out of the car," he laughed. "It rang out a few times on the road."
'New' bell a perfect fit
The bell fit the Gaspé belfry perfectly. There was nothing to adjust — not even the rope used to ring it. It had been made in the same foundry as church's original bell and was more than half-a-century older. It dated back to 1868.
The reverend drove it up to the tower on Friday and Bart Morse, whose great grandfather donated the first bell, was the first person to ring it that Sunday.
"For those who didn't know and had missed the sound for nearly three years, it was a beautiful surprise," said Savage.
Though, Savage still hopes the original will one day return.
This week provincial police reunited a church in Sawyerville, in Eastern Townships, with its stolen bell.
"These things have a tendency to show up," Savage said.
With files from Rachelle Solomon and Ariane Perron-Langlois