Old bell carries legacy of higher education

Wadsworth, Ohio

Nearly 140 years ago, an 800-pound bell called students to study and worship at the first Mennonite institution of higher education in North America. On October 20, that bell was given to Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) so it once again can call students to worship.

Originally the bell hung in the cupola of Wadsworth Institute, which offered training for ministers and church workers from 1868-78. Although the school operated for only 10 years, it gave a foundation to other church schools: Halstead Seminary in Kansas which led to the founding of Bethel College in 1888; Witmarsum Theological Seminary, which was part of Bluffton College from 1914-31; and Mennonite Biblical Seminary, which began in Chicago in 1945 and became part of AMBS in Indiana in 1958.

After the Wadsworth Institute closed, the property eventually became the site of a public school. When the building was razed in 1923, the bell lay on the lawn until 1949 when it was placed on a platform. In 2002, Denton Croyle, retired dentist and archivist for the Mennonite church in Wadsworth, negotiated with the local board of education to give the bell to AMBS.

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"The bell going to Elkhart is a grand closure to a long history," Croyle said.

On October 20, as the Wadsworth Mennonite Church celebrated its 150th anniversary, a symbolic transfer of the bell was included in the service. AMBS hopes to have the bell restored and given a prominent place.

Nelson Kraybill, AMBS president, said, "AMBS is heir to the various attempts at formal pastoral and theological education. This bell represents that legacy. It also represents the central place worship has in the life of a seminary community. This bell, if it can be restored, will call the seminary community to worship God."

John H. Oberholtzer, who supervised the construction of the Wadsworth Institute, promoted college-seminary education in a less than enthusiastic Mennonite constituency. He purchased the bell from a company in Cincinnati and it was installed a few days before the dedication of the school on October 13, 1866.

Church historian H. P. Krehbiel wrote: "Very early on the morning of the thirteenth, I, in company with several friends, started for Wadsworth.... When yet some little distance away we saw the little cupola towering above the new building, and soon was heard the bell in it sounding forth its mellow tones and inviting the people to the celebration."

John Ellsworth Hartzler, in Education Among the Mennonites of America, stated: "Perhaps one of the greatest results of the Wadsworth school is in the closer union which it brought and made possible in American Mennonitism."

"It is fitting," Kraybill said, "that AMBS, which has been a forerunner of integration in the Mennonite Church today, will now be able to use this same bell to continue to build unity among people from Mennonite congregations in the US, Canada and around the world, as well as with people from other Christian faith traditions."--AMBS release by Mary E. Klassen