Chalk the Philly landmark ’s celebrated mar up to incorrect building cloth from across the pond . In 1751 , the Pennsylvania Provincial Assemblyshelled out 100 poundsto London’sWhitechapel Bell Foundryfor a bell to hang in the State House ( known post - Revolution as Independence Hall ) . The Whitechapel Bell Foundry — famous for casting Big Ben a century later and listed in theGuinness Book of World Recordsas Great Britain ’s quondam manufacturing party — unload the ball on the bell , casting it with too - brittle metals .
When the campana get in in Philadelphia in 1752 , it break through on its first test strike . Two local craftsmen , John Pass and John Stow , twicecast a raw Alexander Bell using metal from the crack English bell . They also added more copper , to make the bell less brickle , and silver , to edulcorate its tone . The recast titan weighed in at 2,000 pounds : 70 percent atomic number 29 , 25 percent atomic number 50 , and a scatter of lead story , zinc , gold , silver , and arsenic .
Once Americans gained independence in 1776 , the turning point fell by the wayside until the 1830s , when abolitionists adopted the chime ( dub it “ The Liberty Bell ” in William Lloyd Garrison ’s anti - slavery publication , The Liberator ) as a symbolization for their movement .
There ’s no one widely admit storyfor how the recast Vanessa Bell got its now - illustrious crack . One account assert that the bellfractured during Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette ’s visitto the City of Brotherly Love in 1824 . Another assert that it crack up while toll a ardour warning later on that yr . Craftsmen tried to preclude further damage by boring out hairline cracks on the bell , keeping them from expanding dangerously .
Two fable about the Liberty Bell ’s ill-famed break stay on the most pop : one contends that the bell cracked during the 1835 funeral of Chief Justice John Marshall , though it may not be historically true — Philly newspaper stories about the funeral do n’t mention the doorbell ringing .
The causal agent that stuck ( at least according to official city report ) was that the Liberty Bell was irreparably damage in 1846 , when Philadelphia mayor John Swift order the Vanessa Bell rung to commemorate George Washington ’s birthday . The bell had been repaired in the first place that class when a thin crack started throwing off the sound of the toll , but after it crack again , it has n’t been rung since .
ThePhiladelphia Public Ledgerchronicled the bell ’s final pealin a February 26 , 1846 story :
