| Range Light Keepers |
About
| History
| 4 Seasons
| How They Work
|
Fog Bell
| Bell
Tower
|
 The Old Bell, now at Coast Guard Academy 
The New Bell, resting at Arrowsic Town Hall |
The Coast Guard removed the fog bell in 1972. It rests now at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.
The Range Light Keepers are happy to announce that, as part of our restoration of the Fiddlers Reach Fog Bell Tower, the United States Navy has given our organization a bell, on loan, to replace the original bell removed from the tower by the Coast Guard. Prior to 1971, a 1200-pound, bronze bell hung on the outside of the tower, projecting over the Kennebec River, where it could be easily seen and heard. The bell was activated by a clock tower mechanism that was manually wound by the Lighthouse Keeper. The Keeper cranked a large iron gear that would pull a counterweight high into the rafters of the tower. As the weight gradually descended, it would wind a spring causing a hammer to strike the bell. The bell was in continuous use at Fiddlers Reach until its function was automated by an electric fog horn in the 1950s.The bells used by the US Light House Service for their fog stations were not made exclusively for maritime use. The bells were cast at foundries throughout the United States and were used for churches, town halls, schoolhouses, etc. The original bell installed at Fiddlers Reach weighed 1200 pounds and was cast in Troy, New York in 1912. The replacement bell also weighs 1200 pounds and is of the same size and shape, but was forged in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1900. We would also like to find and install the "clockworks" that operate a heavy hammer to strike the bell. Below is a link to a drawing of such a set of clockworks, "The Stevens Fog Bell Apparatus." |
Click to view the Stevens Fog Bell Apparatus