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Date: 4/5/2022
HADLEY – The Hadley Department of Public Works (DPW) retrieved a bell from the historic North Hadley Village Hall after the building at 239 River Dr. was sold to a pair of couples that own businesses in Hadley on March 24.
The bell is believed to have been a part of the building since it was built as a school and gifted to the town in 1864 by Hadley resident Lorenzo Granger. Hadley Historical Commission member Denise Barstow Manz said it was designed by William Fenno Pratt, an architect also responsible for the Austin Dickinson House in Amherst and the Northampton City Hall.
“Since then, it has served Hadley as a school, church, community center, library and even a fire station,” Barstow Manz said. “We are lucky to live in a place like New England where our history can be seen in the landscape and its structures every day. Preserving old buildings like the North Hadley Village Hall connects us with our history, heritage and legacy as a community. Historic preservation also provides us with a sense of place which is particularly important for our young people.”
The bell has been disassembled and most of it is with a local machinist to be sandblasted, according to the DPW Building Maintenance Foreman Gary Berg. The wheel, arms, connector on the top and the bell itself were all separated with the machinist waiting for some better weather to do the sand or bead blasting. Berg is working on restoring the bell’s wooden base.
“The base of it is chestnut so the whole so it looks like a square and each arm sits on it,” Berg said. “It gives the bell a lot more character I think than just having a regular bell with the two arms that it sits on. I steam cleaned that and we’re going to pull out the staples and excess stuff in there and then treat it with tung oil or something similar to bring out the color and preserve it. Then it will all go back together and put up on display.”
Select Board Chair David Fill said the location will need to be discussed and voted on by the board, but he fully supports displaying it somewhere for people to enjoy a piece of history.
“[Select Board member] Joyce [Chunglo] had mentioned displaying in the North Hadley Fire Station which was built to replace the North Hadley Village Hall Station and I think that would be a great place for it,” Fill said.
After the pieces are sandblasted, the machinist will weld or braid some cracks in the building so that it will be impossible to see once they are powder-coated black.
The bell itself will be coated with clear enamel to prevent it from oxidizing and turning green again.
Berg said they’ve done a similar job on two other bells in town. One is the old bell at Russell School, displayed in front of Hopkins Academy in a gazebo built by volunteers. The other is from the old fire station and isn’t yet displayed but is ready to be.
While the refurbished bell will be for public consumption, the building will be transformed into high-end apartments. Town Meeting in 2014 allowed the town to sell the building as repair and running costs for the antiquated building crept out of the public’s comfort zone.
“On a more personal note, I grew up in Hadley and the North Hadley Village Hall was a space that I spent many hours in,” Barstow Manz said. “I volunteered there as a Girl Scout and with the Hadley Parks and Recreation Department for summer camps and community events. I also did a 4-H sewing club there after school when I was a teenager. This building contains many happy memories and I’m glad that the next generation of Hadley gets to grow up with this building as a part of their landscape too.”