"I Can Hear The Bells"

Hancock is the first to sign the Declaration. After he signs he says;

"Gentlemen-forgive me if I don't join in the merriment-but if we're arrested now my name is still the only one on the damn thing!"

"Very well, Gentlemen. McNair-go ring the bell."

What do you really know about the Liberty Bell? We know it is cracked, but how? Where is it today? The script says, "The tolling of the Liberty Bell begins." Factual or not?

"The Liberty Bell is a treasured pre-Revolutionary War relic that was first hung on June 7, 1753 in the tower of the newly finished Pennsylvania State House ... the building that would eventually become Independence Hall.

The Liberty Bell was ordered in 1751 and was first cast in London, England. It arrived in Philadelphia in August, 1752 and was cracked "by a stroke of the clapper during a test without any other violence." It was melted down, and a second bell was cast in April 1753, but this one was also defective. A third was cast in June of that year, by Pass and Stowe, "two ingenious workmen" of Philadelphia.
In the re-casting, the English model was broken up and the same metal was used with the addition of one and one-half ounces of American copper to the pound of the old bell metal to make the bell less brittle. The same form and lettering were preserved with the substitution of the names of the founders, the place and year of re-casting.

It weighs over 2,080 pounds (943 kilograms) and is 12 feet (3.7 m) in circumference circumference at the lip. The colonial province of Pennsylvania paid about $300 for it.

It became known as the "Liberty Bell" about 1839, when abolitionists began to refer to it that way. Previously, the bell had been called the "State House Bell."
The inscription on the bell, "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," is taken from the Bible (Lev. 25:10).

It was rung on July 8, 1776, with other church bells, after the public reading of the Declaration of Independence.

In 1777, during the American Revolution, British troops occupied Philadelphia. The bell was removed from the tower and hidden in Allentown, Pennsylvania for safekeeping. It was returned to Philadelphia and replaced in Independence Hall in 1778." (libertybell.com)


From what musical does the title of this blog come?