When Wellesley College was opened in 1875 by co-founders Pauline and Henry Durant, its single, majestically sited building was one of the country’s largest. College Hall contained housing, classrooms, and laboratories, along with a gym, library, chapel, and dining space.
As with any grand venture, there were some glitches. When the electric bell system failed to function the first evening, Pauline’s two young cousins called the community to supper by roaming the halls and banging spoons on pans. Later, Henry went bell-hunting, and a rusty bell was found, cleaned, and promptly put into use to announce meals and classes.
Six years later, it was replaced by a bell formerly used to call monks to prayer and meals at a temple near Tokyo. The circumstances of its removal from Japan are unclear, but there is speculation that the temple priest sold it during a challenging civil-war period.
The bell was installed on College Hall’s third floor, with a sign reading “Bell from ancient Buddhist temple in Japan. Given to Wellesley College by J. L. Graves of Boston. … Cast and Engraved … in the eleventh year of the Age Bunka [1804–1818].”
The bell reminded Wellesley’s first international student, Kin Kato, class of 1892, of the Tokyo home she missed. “The sight of this bell, from the first time I came here, has been my comfort,” she wrote in the Courant, an early College newspaper, in 1889.
In addition to signaling daily routines, the bell was used as a fire alarm. Its 4:30 a.m. sounding was the first warning of the 1914 fire that destroyed College Hall.
Residents knew what to do when the alarm bell rang; the College had held fire drills since the 1870s. Unannounced nighttime drills were instituted by the student fire chief in 1913, against the advice of the College physician. But on the morning of the fire, within 10 minutes, all students and faculty members were accounted for and safe.
College Hall, which took four years to build, burned down in just four hours. The Japanese bell sounded one final time as it plummeted to the floor.
The College Archives includes fragments of the bell, which will be on display in the Davis Museum’s spring 2026 exhibition Only To Be There: Student Traditions at Wellesley, part of the College’s 150th anniversary celebrations. The Davis’s fall 2025 exhibition, Digging Into History: The Wellesley College Hall Archaeology Project, will include other items
from College Hall, which were found during recent archeological digs near Tower Court.
Search the collection (archives.wellesley.edu) and the Digital Archive (repository.wellesley.edu) to learn more about Wellesley’s early days, the College Hall fire, and recent fire-related archeological exploration.
Post a Comment
We ask that those who engage in Wellesley magazine's online community act with honesty, integrity, and respect. (Remember the honor code, alums?) We reserve the right to remove comments by impersonators or comments that are not civil and relevant to the subject at hand. By posting here, you are permitting Wellesley magazine to edit and republish your comment in all media. Please remember that all posts are public.