It was 2009. The church had just moved out of its original home in Herron to a new building in Hubbard Lake. The new home had no bell tower, so the bell that had sat in the old church’s steeple since 1910 now sat on the ground as what Pastor Joe Llewellyn called “a static art piece.”

The congregants had to decide if that’s where it should stay.

“It was almost unanimous,” Llewellyn said in a recent interview. “People were like, ‘No, we wanna be able to hear the bell ring.'”

Throughout Northeast Michigan, historic churches and more modern ones alike ring bells sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, sometimes only for special occasions such as weddings or funerals. No matter the occasion, each time those bells sound, they ring the sounds of history, of nostalgia, of tradition, of joy or sorrow, church leaders said.

News Photo by Justin A. Hinkley The bell at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Hubbard Lake hangs in the bell tower at the church on Tuesday.

“For a lot of people, there is that connection of remembering, and they want to be able to hold onto that memory,” Llewellyn said. “When people hear that bell, those memories keep flooding right back.”

Some churches play electronic recordings of bells. Others have mechanical bells that ring on their own to mark the hour. Other churches have their original bells from the church’s founding, still rung by a rope and pully system.

At some churches, the history of the bells have been lost to time and the changing of church leadership, but bells — in one form or another — date back to the earliest days of Northeast Michigan churches.

In 1865, before the church had a building, First Congregational United Church of Christ met in a deacon’s house, called to worship by the deacon hitting part of a circular saw hung from the porch of his home, according to a booklet on the church’s history provided by the church. First Congregational had its first official building in 1868 and a bell by 1869.

Pat Labadie, First Congregational’s historian, said he hasn’t been able to determine if the church’s current building, built in 1954, contains the bell from the old church or if one was purchased for the new building.

News Photo by Justin A. Hinkley A sign on the side of the bell tower at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Hubbard Lake says in both German and English, “Glory to God in the Highest.”

St. Paul in Hubbard Lake was first founded in 1894 and the church began discussing a bell by 1899, Llewellyn said. The bell was finally cast in 1910. That is the bell St. Paul still has to this day.

At New Life Christian Fellowship in Alpena, Pastor Michelle Smith said she remembers the bells ringing at her girlhood church before it was time for worship to start, “and we would just quicken our step.”

“Back in the day, nobody had clocks or watches, so it was communication, you know, ‘Church is starting,'” said Pastor Gary Smith, Michelle Smith’s husband.

“Bells have dated back in the history as far as you go,” said the Rev. John Shipman, pastor at St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church in Alpena. “It is, again, a ringing, reaching out beyond the human voice, that it is a time for worship.”

Before the age of instant communication, church bells told other important information, too.

News Photo by Justin A. Hinkley Pastor Joe Llewellyn pulls the rope to ring the bell at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Hubbard Lake on Tuesday.

The Alpena St. Paul’s bell rings daily at noon and 4 p.m., Shipman said, a tradition that likely dates back to the bell telling folks it was lunchtime and the end of the workday.

At the Hubbard Lake St. Paul, where church officials still have the original, handwritten notes (in German) of the founding of the church, Llewellyn said the bell used to ring to announce to townsfolk the death of a church member. The bell would toll once for a child, twice for an adult, and then once for every year of the deceased congregants’ life.

“You would hear the bell 87 times and try to figure out, ‘OK, who’s 87?'” Llewellyn said.

Now, in the age of smartphones, bells remain to connect people to the past, church leaders said. Usually placed in steeples or bell towers that were once the highest points in town to symbolize that nothing is above God, the bells’ ringing connects people to their faith.

“The sound of a bell, it has a real connotation to it,” Michelle Smith said. “It can be solemn or it can be joyful … It just sounds out of over the community, and it brings them back to thinking about God.”

News Photo by Justin A. Hinkley Pastor Gary Smith pulls the rope to ring the bell at New Life Christian Fellowship in Alpena on Tuesday.

“Well, there’s something emotional about that tradition,” Labadie said. “It’s touching to hear it, and it’s touching to hear churches of various denominations kind of bound together by that.”

That’s why the Hubbard Lake St. Paul decided to build a new bell tower to bring their bell up off the ground.

Raising about $55,000, the church contracted Moran Iron Works to build a metal tower just outside the church entrance. On the side of the bell tower, like on the side of the bell itself, are the German words for “glory to God in the highest.” The bell tower also includes the English translation. Moran also polished the bell back to its original 1910 luster.

At a Dec. 10, 2017 rededication ceremony, officials rang the bell 60 times, once for every church member who had died since the decommissioning of the church’s old building.

“The whole purpose of bringing the bell back up is so it could continue to be a reminder of the past but also to call people to worship into the future,” Llewellyn said. “It’s a great way to bridge the gap between old and new.”

News Photo by Justin A. Hinkley Pastor Gary Smith rocks the yoke to ring the bell at New Life Christian Fellowship in Alpena on Tuesday.

News Photo by Justin A. Hinkley Pastor Gary Smith points out the name of the O.S. Bell Co. out of Hillsboro, Ohio listed on the bell at New Life Christian Fellowship in Alpena on Tuesday. The number 34 may signify the foundry number, Smith said.

News Photo by Justin A. Hinkley The bell is seen in the belfry at New Life Christian Fellowship in Alpena on Tuesday.

News Photo by Justin A. Hinkley The ladder up to the bell tower at First Congregational United Church of Christ is pictured on Monday.

News Photo by Justin A. Hinkley The bell tower at First Congregational United Church of Christ is pictured on Monday.