It's Happening: The Story Behind the "New" All Saints Church Bell
By Julie Perine on February 12, 2023 from It’s Happening
I grew up next to All Saints Catholic Church. I played on the old school playground and through the years delighted in hearing the church bells and seeing folks arrive for services.
My parents made friends with and chatted with the priests – Father Carroll, Father Cann and others - who through the decades have lived in the parsonage next door. When I was a little girl, the parsonage was a little green house which was demolished years ago and replaced with a cool, modern structure.
Throughout the past 50-plus years, there have been lots of changes at All Saints, the biggest, of course, being the construction of the present-day parish. It is such a beautiful building and even more gorgeous when the sun is setting behind it.
I still frequent my childhood home and notice when something new is happening at the community church.
Several weeks ago, I was leaving my parents’ home when I saw a crane lowering a church bell. I didn’t have time to stop, but I followed up.
I contacted my All Saints go-to Stephen Pishner, who told me that the bell I saw being lowered behind the concrete wall at the corner of Main and Third streets is 87 years old. There is a very good reason it was moved by machinery. It weighs 700 pounds!
Engraved on the bronze bell – a blend of 80 percent copper and 20 percent tin – is “St. Francis Borgia Church.” That church, formerly located in Anmoore – or Grasselli as it had once been known – is the first church where Father Charles R. Carroll served after he was ordained in 1933 and was ministering at St. Mary’s Hospital in Clarksburg.
St. Francis Borgia Church closed in 1982 and was later sold and ultimately demolished. A few things were salvaged: Some windows, chalices, a tabernacle and the bell. It once rang from the church tower, which according to reports, was once struck by lighting which initiated a fire. The bell was relocated to a smaller tower, but still used at St. Francis. Since then, it has been utilized by another church and spent years in storage.
Before its journey to All Saints, the bell was restored by The Verdin Bell Company of Cincinatti. A church member secured resources for the restoration and installation process. There’s some history to that bell, and to All Saints Catholic Church, some sentimental venue.
“Today, many people recall knowing or have heard of Father Charles Carroll, who served this area for 50 years,” Pishner said. “The restoration and installation of the St. Francis Borgia Church Bell is an act of preservation of the memory of all who faithfully attended that church, prayed there, received their sacraments there and a reminder of the enormous work and ministry of Father Carroll.”
The idea to embark upon the restoration project was the vision of Father Walter Jagela (pictured below), who became pastor in March of 2020, following the death of Father Benedict "Benny" Kappa. .
To read more about the history of All Saints, visit allsaintsbridgeport.com.
