Hillsdale’s Victory Bell has left its spot near Central Hall and travelled to the Verdin Bell Company in Cincinnati for restoration. 

“The bell had a small crack and some other minor issues,” Chief Administrative Officer Rich Péwé said.  “It will go into the tower of the Grewcock Student Union when it is rebuilt. The Grewcock tower will be complete by December 2025, and the bell will be installed and working by then. The bell will have clappers and will be rung on special occasions.”

The Victory Bell, hung in Central Hall in 1875, is made of copper from the Lake Superior Copper Company and was cast by the Jones & Company Troy Bell Foundry in Troy, New York, according to Mossey Library Technician Markie Repp. The bell weighed in at 2,551 pounds, but over time was too great for the Central Hall tower. In an effort to save the tower, the bell was lowered to the side of Central Hall in 1956, according to Hillsdale’s historical records. Electronic bell sounds still carry on the sound of the Victory Bell every 15 minutes.

The Verdin Bell Company is renowned for casting the highest quality bells in the United States, according to its website. Among these bells is the World Peace Bell, hung in Kentucky, which is the largest swinging bell in the world, weighing in at 66,000 pounds, according to the Verdin website. Tim Verdin, a sixth-generation leader of the family business, explained the company’s full restoration process.

“We’re going to bead blast it to get the patina off and then we would just use a brush to polish it up a little bit,” Verdin said. “The bead blasting opens the pores of the bronze and so we use a brush to close those pores, but it will be a satin finish when it’s done.”

Bead blasting uses high pressure air to shoot small spherical glass beads at metal to carefully remove unwanted layers of the surface. After the surface of the bell is renewed, Verdin plans to install cast iron accessories after coming up with a design.

“All of the new ringing and support equipment — we still have to design that. Once those drawings are done, it typically takes us 60 days to get the bell ready,” Verdin said.

Sophomore Michael Bogumill said he has missed the presence of the bell, which he walked by after his daily science classes. 

“Every time I would walk by it, it just felt like eternity, because time stops when you get to walk by the Victory Bell,” Bogumill said.

In addition to its sentimental value, Bogumill said he mourns the loss of the bell in the statue golf game often played by Hillsdale students. In the game, students hit foam balls with golf wedges in hopes of striking the statues around campus, remembering the importance of each statue along the way, according to Bogumill.

“I hit a 200-foot drive with my nine iron with a foam ball, and I hit a hole-in-one, and it rang across campus, signifying my hole in one,” Bogumill said.

No matter how long it takes for the bell to return to campus, Bogumill said he still feels a connection to the bell that he passed everyday.

“I personally would love to preserve the connection that many students felt while walking by the Victory Bell and the freedom and pride that they took into college,” Bogumill said.