12/14/2025
Regarding The Church of the Bells Carillon - an electronic glitch has temporarily silenced our bells! Repairs are being done and hopefully the Carillon will be ringing in the air soon. Here's a photo of our church bell inside the bell tower...which could be rung manually by a rope.
Inside the tower was mounted a bell cast by G.L Hanks in Cinn. Ohio (Cincinnati); it was rung to call the congregation to worship services. It is believed this bell was purchased and placed in the tower at the time it was constructed in 1837. The bell is 30 inches in diameter at the base, 27 inches in height and 18 inches across at the top. It is decorated with small angels and cherubs. In March 2010, the bell and its mounting were inspected by Jim Blair and this photo was taken. The mounting timbers are in such good shape that he feels they could last another 100 years.
According to articles in found The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America and the American Bell Association International, Inc., George Lucius Hanks was born in the state of New York in 1813 to Alpheus Hanks. George was a nephew of Col. Benjamin Hanks who operated one of the earliest regular bell foundries in the United States, at Hanks Hill, east of what is now Storrs, in the town of Mansfield, Connecticut. George’s father, Alpheus, had a partnership with Truman Hanks (son of Col. Benjamin) in iron foundries located in Gibbonsville and Troy, NY, as well as in Hartford, CT and Cincinnati, OH. Benjamin Hanks learned bell founding as an apprentice in the Paul Revere bell foundry. The Hanks family was all related to Nancy Hanks Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's mother. George Lucious Hanks moved to Cincinnati in the 1930’s and began casting bells. After 1842, he began using the name Cincinnati Bell Foundry. He died in 1859 at the age of 46 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
