Historic bell to be dedicated Saturday at Linwood Park

VERMILION — A makeover 141 years in the making will be celebrated this week in Linwood Park with the return of the park's iconic bell. The bell has sat in the center of the park in its own bell tower since the park's beginnings. "We call it that even though it's not tall or anything, it's just a little building around the bell," said Linwood resident Janet Waggoner. The private lakeside retreat was started as a German evangelical community inspired by the Chautauqua, N.Y. Methodist Sunday School movement. The land was first acquired in 1883, and the first cottages and the Tabernacle was built in 1884. That's the year the bell arrived, a gift from the McShane Bell Foundry in Baltimore. Linwood was designed around for summer vacations built at the seaside where Sunday services and circuit preachers would be a focal point for visiting families. At the time, most manufactured bells were ordered by churches, and the company hoped visiting ministers, duly impressed, would place orders for their own bells. "It was a marketing tool for the McShane Bell Company," Waggoner said. The bell proved to be a valuable communication device for the park in its early decades. It was rung as a timepiece of sorts, to mark hours. It was used to summon help in case of a fire, or emergencies or if a boat was spotted in distress for decades before every cottage was equipped with phones. In 2023 park officials decided to restore the bell. They began raising money among community members for the project, which was going to cost an estimated $19,000, including $6,000 for shipping. The 1,047-pound bell — along with its 126-pound ironwork top — was packed up and shipped back to its original manufacturer, which is still in operation but is now located in Missouri, in October. The bell returned to Vermilion last week. It has a new house, too. "The tower had to be demolished to take it out," she said. It had been altered many times over the years, as steps deteriorated or parts needed rebuilt. A new concrete pad was laid and a new building was built around the bell after its return, with a new pergola, windows and doors, which is to be finished. The bell is, in actuality, retired from duty but preservation matters in Linwood. Tradition is honored in a place where people often compare by decades how many summers they've spent here. Waggoner, whose family have summered at Linwood for seven generations, knows another family with nine generations there. "It's more about the history of it now that we actually use carillons, a recording type thing, that ring out the time of day now," she said. "We really honor our history here. There's one family that used to rent out the lodge here for one week, every summer, for 75 years. The same week." For the first time, Linwood Park is the spotlight of next year's calendar produced by the Vermilion Historical Society. Each month of the 2026 calendar features a landmark bit of Linwood's history. "This is their 20th year and it's really neat, we were really pleased they would do this," she said. I picked them up last Saturday and just by word of mouth I've already sold 44." A dedication service will be at 5 p.m. Saturday. "The bell is back and it's beautiful. It's hard to imagine she was sitting in this little shanty for 140 years." Contact Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com