Bath, Maine's Paul Revere Bell is Rung Only Once a Year - Every New Year's Eve
Copley’s portrait of Paul Revere. 34 years before the Bath bell came to be.
Every New Year’s Eve for the past 20+ years Bath, Maine has celebrated the New Year 12 hours early with the ringing of the Paul Revere Bell in the City Hall belfry. Was it simply cast in Paul Revere’s Foundry, or did the galloping patriot himself lay hands on it? No one knows for sure, but either way, it’s a rare and special thing. Add to that, it is only rung once a year. For the last couple of decades that honor has gone to Bath’s Citizen of the Year.
The festivities begin every December 31st at 1130am on the corner of Front and Centre Streets with the reading of a proclamation, the singing of songs (including the “12 Days of Bath”) and at 12 noon (more or less), the ringing of the bell. It’s one of those sweet, low-key, high cute quotient events that just seem to happen all the time in Bath. (Thank you Main Street Bath.)
The bell, cast in 1802, was purchased for Bath’s North Meeting House. It was later placed in the 1837 Town Hall on Centre Street (pictured, at right). The belfry in the 1929 Davenport Memorial City Hall (seen below) was built specially to house the bell. When that building was dedicated, local writer Alice Mae Douglas recited a special poem for the day, reproduced in Bath’s 2020 annual report.
The old Bath City Hall, on the northeast corner of Centre and Water Streets.
Bath, Maine’s Paul Revere Bell, cast in 1802. Beyond, looking west at a blue-bird sky on a late fall day in the the lovely City of Ships.
I had a chance to go on a guided tour of City Hall one fall; the City frequently and generously donates a tour as a charity auction item for local nonprofits. (The Bath-area YMCA benefited from my bid.) City HR Director Erika Helgerson took us around and let me go to the top to snap some pics. (Jeff Cutler took the one of me, and of me and Erika below.) It was such a thrill!
Bath’s New Year’s Eve 2022 bell-ringing.
