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Aberdeen to Zebulon: |
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Thomas and William Polk saved the Liberty Bell
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It really happened.
Colonel Thomas Polk was one of the heroes who wrote, signed and proclaimed the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence in Charlotte at noon, May 20, 1775.
Three years later he and his son William were saving The Liberty Bell from the enemies of American freedom.
In September of 1777 the British army was getting ready to seize Philadelphia, the center of the new American government. Two hundred revolutionary cavalrymen under command of Colonel Thomas Polk of the 4th Regiment, North Carolina Continental Line, were determined to rescue the precious Liberty Bell and take it to Allentown, 60 miles north.
On September 18 the patriots arrived in Richland Township in the borough of Quakertown. They pulled the bell wagon to a small house owned by Evan Foulke at the crossroads today known as Liberty Hall at 1237 West Broad Street. Polk’s horses were cared for by the proprietor of McCoole’s Tavern as the Cavalry bivouacked.
Seven days later the bell had been safely carried and hidden in the basement of Zion Reformed Church in Allentown. It stayed right there until the end of the Revolution.
The father-and-son heroes of the Revolution had good reason to rescue The Liberty Bell. Earlier the Americans stole the statue of King George III in New York and melted it down to make bullets to kill the English. Ever since then The Liberty Bell was targeted by the Crown for similar insulting destruction.
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Produced by the public relations committee of the Grand Lodge AF&AM of Masons in North Carolina,
2921 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27628 MMVIII
Author/editor: Walter J. Klein wklein(at)carolina.rr.com
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