Another means of notification of the hour for religious service was by the
use of a flag, often in addition to the sound of the drum or bell. Thus in
Plymouth, in 1697, the selectmen were ordered to "procure a flagg to be put
out at the ringing of the first bell, and taken in when the last bell was
rung." In Sutherland also a flag was used as a means of announcement of
"meeting-time," and an old goody was paid ten shillings a year for "tending
the flagg."
Mr. Gosse, in his "Early Bells of Massachusetts," gives a full and
interesting account of the church-bells of the first colonial towns in that
State. Lechford, in his "Plaine Dealing," wrote in 1641 that they came
together in Boston on the Lord's Day by "the wringing of a bell," and it is
thought that that bell was a hand-bell. The first bells, for the lack
of bell-towers, were sometimes hung on trees by the side of the
meeting-houses, to the great amazement and distress of the Indians, who
regarded them with superstitious dread, thinking--to paraphrase Herbert's
beautiful line--"when the bell did chime 't was devils' music;" but more
frequently the bells were hung in a belfry or bell-turret or "bellcony,"
and from this belfry depended a long bell-rope quite to the floor; and thus
in the very centre of the church the sexton stood when he rung the summons
for lire or for meeting.
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