Safety--A Defeat which Equaled a Victory--Washington's Earnestness--To
Congress on Horseback--The First 4th of July Celebration.


It was not until April 19th, 1775, that the shot was fired which was
"heard around the world." But the struggle for American Independence was
really started nearly a quarter of a century earlier, when on the
afternoon of August 27th, 1753, Liberty Bell was rung to call together
the Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania.

In the old days of town meetings, training days, town schools and
Puritans, bells took a more prominent part in public affairs than they
do to-day. It was usual to call the people together for purposes of
deliberation by means of a village or town bell, and of these bells the
one to which we refer was the most important and interesting. Liberty
Bell is well named. It was ordered in the year 1751, and it was
delivered a year later. Shortly afterwards, it cracked, and had to be
recast, but in June, 1753, it was finally hung in the Pennsylvania State
House at Philadelphia. It has never been removed from the building
except on two occasions. The first of these was in 1777, when it was
taken to Allentown for safety, and the second in 1885, when it was
exhibited at New Orleans.

This bell, which sounded the death-blow to tyranny and oppression, was
first rung to call together the Assembly, which immediately resolved to
insist upon certain rights which had been denied the colonists by the
British Crown. Eighteen months later, it was again rung to announce the
meeting at which the rights of the colonists were sternly defined and
insisted upon. In 1765, it convened the meeting of the Assembly at which
it was resolved to be represented at the Congress of the Colonies in New