Vallecito
Union Church & Miners' Bell
The Miners’ Bell stands atop a stone monument in
front of the
little Union Church. The bell was cast in Troy,
New York, in 1853 and
then installed on a ship which came to California
around the Horn. When
the ship reached San Francisco, the entire crew
caught a severe case of
gold fever and deserted for the mines, leaving the
ship stranded in the
bay. At about this same time, the town of
Vallecito was looking for a
bell to sound an alarm in case of fire, and to
summon folks to church
and children to school. Learning of the ship’s
circumstances and
fittings, a group of men went to San Francisco and
purchased the bell.
Upon their return it was mounted in a large oak
tree near the center of
town, where it faithfully served its purpose for
many years. The old
oak was felled by severe winds on February 16 of
1939, the bell
crashing to earth in wild reverberations. In
October of that year, the
Native Sons of the Golden West mounted the old
bell on the stone
monument where it remains today.
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