Bell a historic link for Presbyterian church

The cracked church bell at First Presbyterian Church hasn’t rung in 120 years, but it remains a silent sentinel for a congregation that has been a part of Kalispell’s history since the late 1800s.

First Presbyterian is celebrating its 125th anniversary this weekend. The reminiscing is sure to include the story of the church bell, thanks to history compiled by longtime church member Gayle N. Collins.

“The old church bell, cracked and permanently silenced, has stood as witness to the courage and spiritual faith of the Flathead Valley since 1892,” Collins wrote in her account, appropriately titled “The Last Pioneer Witness.”

A member of First Presbyterian since 1966, Collins has always had a keen interest in church history. Serving as the church’s clerk of session (board of elders) for five years in the 1990s gave her an opportunity to delve into church records.

“I had an interest, and started pulling all of the findings in all the nooks and crannies,” Collins said. “We had just finished the 100th anniversary celebration shortly before I became clerk. There were records in boxes and filing cabinets. You start reading this stuff and start talking to people.”

First Presbyterian Church was established Sept. 13, 1891, by the Rev. George McVey Fisher. That was the same year the Kalispell townsite was platted and its first lots were sold. Kalispell incorporated a year later, in 1892, the same year the church bell was shipped on the Great Northern Railway from Cincinnati, Ohio.

The church’s beginnings stretch back even further, though.

The Rev. Fisher preached the area’s first sermon in the Ashley schoolhouse on Sept. 12, 1886, Collins noted. In 1887 he petitioned the Presbytery of Montana for a missionary to serve the Ashley and Selish communities. When those communities pledged to support a Presbyterian church, the Presbytery recommended Fisher be commissioned by the Board of Home Missions for the Flathead Valley, Collins said.

“He organized the Presbyterian Society of Ashley on June 2, 1889, which later became the First Presbyterian Church of Kalispell when the town of Kalispell was organized in May 1891,” Collins said.

It was no doubt exciting for the fledgling congregation — there were 17 charter members — to receive what is believed to be the Flathead Valley’s first church bell.

When the congregation built a church at Second Avenue East and Third Street in 1892, the bell was mounted in the church steeple.

It rang for only four years.

In 1896 the bell cracked, “which rendered its resounding call mute,” Collins said.

Its likely it was too big a task or too expensive an undertaking to ship the bell back for repair. At any rate, the iconic bell was saved but never repaired.

A new church was built on Main Street starting in 1925, and the bell was removed from the steeple and moved to the site where First Presbyterian Church is located today. The bell was there when the congregation celebrated its first service in the new facility on Easter Sunday 1926.

“The bell stood watch from its placement on the ground near the entrance,” Collins wrote. “Through expansions and renovations in the 1950s and 1990s, the bell continued its silent lookout.

“In 1966, however, it was given a permanent setting in celebration of the church’s 75th anniversary and dedicated in memory of the Christian pioneers. ...The old church bell stands at the ready to continue its silent testimony to the pioneer spirit still found throughout the Flathead Valley’s faith community,” Collins concluded.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.