Old North Church, Boston

[Richard Smith]

Accorind to the church website, the sixth at Old North 
Church, Boston, has the inscription "We are the first ring 
of bells cast for the British Empire in North America". 
The bells are a complete Rudhall eight, cast in 1744.  Is 
anything known about how Old North came to have the first 
North American ring of bells?

Old North was built in 1723.  Until that year, the governor 
of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, of which Boston was 
the capital, was Col. Samuel Shute.  Shute was a Londoner 
who was elected to the College Youths in 1685 and became 
steward in 1690.  Is it a coincidence that the first ring of 
bells in North America was installed in a tower built only 
21 years earlier in a capital of province whose governor was 
a College Youth?

RAS