Alfred University


Davis Memorial Carillon

Links to Carillon Inventories
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Alumni of Alfred University donated money to buy a carillon to honor their former president Boothe Colwell Davis and his wife. A 35-bell carillon was purchased and installed in a wooden tower. Thirteen of the bells were cast in 1874 by Petrus Hemony, 19 of them by George Dumery between 1743 and 1786, and three by A Van den Gheyn in 1784, which was confirmed by Jef Denyn, former head of the carillon school in Mechelen Belgium. It was first played on September 11, 1937 by Henry S. Wesson and dedicated in June 12, 1938 with a recital by Kamiel Lefevre.

The carillon was enlarged to 43 bells in 1953 when a new steel tower was built. Another enlargement in 1977 brought the total number of bells to 47. The carillon was rededicated on October 8, 1983 after the tower was enclosed with a recital given by Frank Pechin Law. The top 20 bells were replaced in 2006.

Several people suspected that something was fishy about the old bells and Andre Lehr summarized the evidence in a 2003 article showing that the Hemony and Van den Gheyn bells were counterfeit. Although some blame Alfred to some degree for not being as vigilant as they should, the fact is that Jef Denyn, considered the foremost authority on carillons, had vouched for the bell's authenticity.

Charlotte Nichols Greene was involved in the acquisition of these bells and she has earlier donated a carillon to Wellesley College and her son donated a carillon in her memory to Norwich University.

References
1928 Henry S. Wesson becomes the first carillonneur at the Ward-Belmont School for Girls.

1929 Alfred Professor Lloyd Watson asked the John Taylor Bell Foundry for carillon prices, after which they sent him their carillon calendar every year.

1932 Henry S. Wesson graduates from the carillon school in Mechelen. .

1933 Chicago Tribune, September 17, 1933, Page 7-4.
A carillon of thirty-six bells has been under process of installation at the Belgian village. Henry S. Wesson, first American graduate from the School of Carillon Art in Malines, Belgium is the village carilloneur, giving concerts three times a day. At the end of the Exposition these bells will be given a permanent place in one of the Chicago churches. [This carillon was bought by Charlotte Nichols Greene and was installed at Norwich University in Vermont in 1956 after her death.].

1935 The Dumery carillon that was removed from Sint Salvatorkerk in Harelbeke was set up by Michiels to play at the World Exhibition in Brussels..

1935 Charlotte Greene wrote to the Watsons with information about the Dumery carillon and her consultation with Jef Denyn, July 30, 1935, mentioned in Lehr's 2003 article, page 2.

1936 Jef Denyn wrote to Henry S. Wesson describing the bells he had discussed with Charlotte Green, May 29, 1936. Lehr 2003 article, page 2.

1936 "Memorial Carillon Planned for Alfred University," The Buffalo News, June 11, 1936, Page 1.
J. Nelson Norwood, president of Alfred university, today confirmed reports that a Belgian carillon will be installed at the university this Fall as a memorial to President-Emeritus end Mrs Booth C Davis
The carillon, he said, will be the only one of its kind on the continent The carillon won first prize at the 1935 Brussels exposition. Dr Norwood said the class graduated at commencement exercises Wednesday contributed $300 toward purchase of the carillon.

1936 Jef Denyn letter to Charlotte Greene describing the 14 Dumery bells and 21 new bells in great detail, August 17, 1936. Lehr 2003 page 2.

1936 Henry S. Wesson letter to Norman J. Whitney that mentions a carillon with bells by Dumery, Hemony and van Gheyn, on August 20, 1936.
on Alfred, that Charlotte Greene not only envisioned a carillon with bells by Joris Dumery, but also with bells by Pieter
Hemony and Andreas Joseph van den Gheyn. Bells by Hemony, the most famous bell founder of all time, that was a
godsend.

1936 Since Michaux had contact with Alfred, Michiels offered him the carillon with bells by Hemony, Van den Gheyn and Dumery to Michaux for 90,000 francs,.October 19, 1936, Lehr 2003 page 3..

1936 Letter from M Michaux to Alfred, November 1, 1936, quoted in 1937 Whitney article, page 17, and 1940 Alfred book, pages 10 & 11.
"You will understand it is particularly difficult to find old bells and to approve these; since the war these objects represent a precious value.
I have had the good fortune to find a series of Hemony Bells of heavier weight which permits with the Dumery and Van den Gheyn Bells, the assembling of a carillon of 35 bells, resembling the carillon at the Chicago Exposition.

1936 On December 10, 1936, the then 74‐year‐old Denyn wrote to Michiels: Is that true? Can you bring them [the old bells] together and make them sound? Michiels' answer on the sixteenth was crystal clear: Yes, I can collect such a carillon, I have a difficult occasion at the moment, which will never be encountered again. And a little further: They [the bells] come from four different places.

1937 "Alfred to Have Unique Carillon," The Buffalo News, January 9, 1937, Page 3.
Bells More than Century Old Will be Used.
The unique quality of this particular assembly lies in the sources from which the bells come. All of them were cast by old masters and have graced various municipal carillons in Belgium for more than 150 years, some of them more than 250 years Thirteen of the bells were cast in 1874 by Petrus Hemony, 19 of them by George Dumery between 1743 and 1786, and three by A Van den Gheyn in 1784

1937 "Buy Carillon for Alfred," The New York Times, January 10, 1937, Page 46.
Alumni Purchase Bells Cast by Noted Belgian Makers.

1937 "Memorial Carillon," Albany Times-Union, January 11, 1937, Page 9.
A 35-bell carillon that includes 13 bells made by Peter Hemony in 1674 will be erected on the Alfred university campus this spring as a memorial to President Emeritus Boothe C. Davis and his wife. Dr. Lloyd R. Watson of the Alfred faculty, announcing Its purchase, said all the bells were from munncipally-owned carillons in Belgium, sold because their destructlon was feared in the event of another war.

1937 "How the Carillon Idea Started and Grew," by Norman J. Whitney, February 5, 1937, The Alumni News, Winter 1937, Page 37.

1937 "Seek Funds for Addition to University Carillon," Times Herald, April 24, 1937, Page 4.

1937 On May 22, 1937, at the request of Omer Michaux, Jef Denyn was able to draw up an inspection report on the carillon, consisting of eighteen bells by Pieter Hemony from 1674, one bell by Andreas Josef van den Ghein from 1781 and sixteen bells by Joris Dumery, mainly from 1737

1937 Carillon shipped from Antwerp on the S.S. Gerolstein, July 3, 1937, from 1940 Alfred book, page 11..

1937 July 15, 1937, the carillon arrived in New York City. A transfer company had charge of moving the heavy shipment safely from ship to car. Being works of art and over one hundred years old, under Uncle Sam’s customs rules, the carillon came in duty free. July 29 the precious freight arrived at Alfred Station.

1937 "Belgian Bells Installed by Alfred Faculty Members," The Buffalo News, July 31, 1937, Page 3.

1937 "Will Play Alfred Bells For First Times Today," Times-Herald, September 11, 1937, Page 4.

1937 "Music: Alfred's Bells," Time, September 27, 1937
As an organ is to a piano, so is a carillon to an ordinary set of bells. Numbering at least 24 (covering two octaves), the bells of a carillon are tuned with the sharps & flats of the chromatic scale, are struck by hammers like piano keys. A chime or peal of church bells, from four to twelve in number, is tuned in the simple diatonic scale and the bells swing freely, emitting their not-always-melodious tones when struck by their clappers. In carillons, the biggest and the smallest bells are the trickiest to cast and tune. Ranked according to the size of their big bass bells, the world's best carillons, all made in England, are all in North America, the largest being the 72-bell carillon of Manhattan's Rockefeller-built Riverside Church, whose 20-ton bass bell is the largest tuned bell extant.* Others: the 72 bells of the University of Chicago Chapel; the Baird Carillon at the University of Michigan; the Bok Carillon in Mountain Lake, Fla.; the 53 bells of the Peace Tower of Canada's Parliament Building in Ottawa. Last week small Alfred University in Alfred, N. Y. inaugurated a carillon of 35 bells which it claimed was the oldest in North America.
Good bells neither improve nor deteriorate with age. But bell founding reached its height in the Low Countries of Europe by the 18th Century, was thereafter a lost art until British bellmakers began rediscovering it about 40 years ago. When alumni and faculty members of Alfred University resolved to spend some $10,000 on a memorial carillon for President Emeritus Boothe Colwell Davis, they instructed a bell founding firm of Brussels, Michaux & Michaels, to buy 35 old bells rather than cast new ones, which would cost somewhat more. Agents of Michaux & Michaels bought the bells in municipal halls, churches and chateaux of Belgium, Holland, northern France. Many of the owners parted with their bells because they feared they might be seized or destroyed in the next war.
Alfred's biggest bell, weighing about a half ton, is also its oldest, cast in 1674 by Pieter Hemony of Amsterdam, ablest bell founder of his time. The youngest bell in the collection was cast in 1784 by another famed bellman, Van den Gheyn of Malines. The 35 assorted bells were assembled and tuned—by scraping metal from the lower "lip" and the inner surface—by Jef Denyn, director of the Belgian National School of the Carillon. The carillon, housed temporarily in a wooden tower on the Alfred campus, was played publicly for the first time last week by Henry S. Wesson of Navasota, Tex., a carillonneur who studied with Director Denyn and, as U. S. representative of Michaux & Michaels, installed a carillon they cast for the Belgian Village at the Chicago Century of Progress Exposition.
Chimes of bells are limited to simple hymns and folk tunes, or unmelodic "change ringing" which is fairly common in the U. S. The musical literature of the carillon is larger, although it, too, has its limitations. One of these is that each bell has four or more separate "partials" or overtones in addition to its fundamental note, and when these are not all in tune with each other as well as with those of other bells, a prodigious jangling results. Thus a carillonneur must often rearrange a composition to allow for discords in his family of bells. Nevertheless, on the ancient bells of Alfred last week, Carillonneur Wesson performed a remarkable variety of tunes, ranging from Hail to Thee, Alfred to two movements from a Sonata for Carillon by Teinmerinaus.

1939 "Bells Sought by Alfred Are Buried in War Zone," The Buffalo News, September 15, 1939, Page 3.

1940 "The Story of the Davis Memorial Carillon," Bulletin No. 3, Historical Series No. 1, January 1940
Page 12. Being works of art and over one hundred years old, under Uncle Sam’s customs rules, the carillon came in duty free.

1940 "A Short History of Bells," by Kamiel Lefevere, Bulletin No. 3, Historical Series No. 2, April 1940

1942 Boothe C. Davis 1863 - 1942, obituary

1947 "Alfred May Buy 9 Bells Hidden From Nazi Army," The Buffalo Evening News, May 12, 1947, Page 1.
Negotiations Under Way With Belgian Owner; Price of $40,000 Set; University to get First Chance.

1948 "Dr. Lloyd R. Watson, Alfred Chemistry Professor, Dies," The Buffalo News, February 26, 1948.

1953 "Big Bell," Democrat and Chronicle, October 31, 1953, Page 31.
Bell is largest of eight new ones given by John P. Herrick of Olean.

1953 "Alfred Begins New Carillon Tower," Democrat and Chronicle, November 16, 1953, Page 31.

1953 "Nearly Ready," Democrat and Chronicle, November 30, 1953, Page 37.
New carillon tower.

1954 "Alfred's Carillonneur and His 43 Mellow Bells in a Tower," Democrat and Chronicle, November 14, 1954, Page 5F.
Dr. Ray W. Wingate. Alfred got its carillon tower pronto after Justin Bradley, a leader in the region's oil and gas industry and a former pupil of Professor Wingate, saw the bells on the ground. The next day he sent one of his oil derrick crews to Alfred and a 70-foot wooden tower, much like an oil derrick, rose swiftly on Pine Hill.

1955 Charlotte Nichols Greene (4 Feb 1879 - 28 Mar 1955) grave

1964 Henry Schumacher Wesson (23 Nov 1896 - 12 Jun 1964) grave

1967 "N.J. Whitney, Ex-Professor, Is Dead at 76," The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 3, 1967, Page 34.

1968 "Dr. Ray W. Wingate Dies at 81; Played Alfred U. Carillon," The Buffalo News, February 16, 1968, Page 31.

1968 The Brotherhood of Bells, by Beatrice Plumb, Monograph No. 4, Alfred Historical Society, December 4, 1968

1977 "Ready to Ring," The Buffalo News, December 8, 1977, Page 37.
Six new bells cast in Holland.

1982 "The Carillon at Alfred University," by James Chapman, Bulletin of the Guild of Carillonneurs of North America 31:12-15 (1982)

1983 "In Tip-Top Shape," The Buffalo News, October 5, 1983, Page 7.
Rededication on Saturday.

1983 The Davis Memorial Carillon Rededication, October 8, 1983.

2003 "Over een klokkengieter die klokken vervalste en over een universiteit die haar kritische zin verloor," by Andre Lehr, Berichten uit het Nationaal Beiaardmuseum, 36:6-19 (November 2003) | Draft translation of this article |

2004 "Alfred uncovers forgery of note," Democrat and Chronicle, January 29, 2004, Page 1B | Part 2 |

2004 "Beloved Carillon May Ring True, but Its History Doesn't," New York Times, February 22, 2004, Page A23.

2004 "Alfred’s Bells Are Ringers," by Bethany Broida, The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 5, 2004

2011 "The strange origins of Alfred University's carillon," by Phillis Meras, The Evening Tribune, March 27, 2011.

2014 Singing Bronze: A History of Carillon Music, by Luc Rombouts | also here |
A piece of European culture was also exported to the new world at Alfred University. In 1937, the alumni of Alfred University in New York State conceived the plan to donate a carillon to their former rector Booth Colwell Davis and his wife as a living memorial: both in fact were still alive and well at that moment. The donors were given a golden opportunity: former bell-founder Omer Michaux offered them a historical carillon composed of 16 bells cast by Joris Dumery, mainly from 1737, a bell by Andreas Jozef Vanden Gheyn from 1781, and no less than 18 bells by Pieter Hemony from 1674. Michaux stated that the bells had found their way to bell-founder Marcel Michiels Jr. in various ways. With these bells, Alfred University would not only own the only historical carillon on American soil, but it would save a unique piece of heritage from imminent destruction since a new war threatened in Europe. The historical instrument was purchased and installed on the campus in an open wooden construction that resembled an oil derrick. Kamiel Lefévere inaugurated the instrument on 12 June 1938. Because Michaux and Michiels told vague and conflicting stories on the origin of the bells, some observers doubted the authenticity of the bells. The full truth came to light only in 2003, after campanologist André Lehr consulted the archives of the Michiels foundry. A number of the Dumery bells came from the Harelbeke carillon that was restored by Marcel Michiels in 1932. Michiels, however, had cast several copies himself according to the Dumery model. He had also cast a series of 18 imitation Hemonys and an imitation Vanden Gheyn bell based on molds of the bells at St. Rumbold’s. The Mechelen city government had these made during the First World War when the bells were threatened with requisition by the German occupying forces. The unsuspecting city government had loaned the molds to Michiels. The forged carillon earned Michaux and Michiels 90,000 Belgian francs, twice the price of a new instrument.

The Bells of Alfred, NY