<html><head></head><body><div class="ydpa8cae527yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:16px;"><div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Attached are four photos of a 10.5-inch diameter bronze bell that was reportedly fished out of the Columbia River in the western USA about 60 years ago. No further provenance is known. It bears the date of 1822, but no other inscription. It has a tang and a cast-in clapper staple, but the clapper is missing. Since the first steamboat arrived on the Columbia River in 1835, and regular steamboat traffic did not develop until the 1850s, it seems unlikely that this was a ship's bell. <span>My guess is that it was part of the cargo of a wrecked steamboat, in the
process of being recycled from its original use elsewhere. But where
that might have been I have no clue.</span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Does the style of the bell or its date fit with what is known of any of the British bellfoundries of that era?<br></div><div><br></div><div class="ydpa8cae527signature"><div style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:16px;">Carl Scott Zimmerman, Campanologist <br>Saint Louis, Missouri, USA -<br> - 19th c. home of at least 37 bell founders or resellers <br>Tel. +1-314-821-8437 <br>Webmaster for www.TowerBells.org<br> * Avocation: tower bells<br> * Recreation: handbells<br><div> * Mission: church bells</div><div><span class="ydpb3b8dea8pasted-link"><span class="ydp73140da6pasted-link">Webmaster for www.TSCChapter134.org</span></span></div><div dir="ltr">Treasurer, World Carillon Federation<br></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>