By Casey Nolen
Jerseyville, IL (KSDK) - It wasn't exactly lost, but it was nearly forgotten.
District employees recently re-discovered a one hundred and 40-year-old bell that used to hang in an historic school.
The bell was found in Jerseyville, Illinois, about 40 miles north of St. Louis.
Tucked away in the corner of the Jersey Community School bus lot, sits a shed that serves as a kind of junk drawer for the district. And just like a drawer, cleaning it out uncovered a lost treasure.
"When they first called and said, 'Hey, I'm interested in the bell that's sitting outside the bus garage,' my thoughts were, 'what bell are we talking about,'" said district administrator Ken Schell.
Antique collectors started calling the district when a maintenance crew cleared out the shed, and sat the 140 year old bell outside in plain sight. It didn't take long for Schell to figure out where the bell came from.
"We don't want to sell the bell. There's just too much history with that bell," he said.
Less than ten miles from where the bell was nearly forgotten in storage, is a school house in Otterville with a past worth remembering.
Profiled in a 2005 NewsChannel 5 Cover Story, the Hamilton Primary School was the first racially integrated school in the United States. It was founded by Silas Hamilton, and wasthe first free public school in Illinois.
Even though the old school house now functions as a museum, it's not the only museum interested in the bell.
Just days after re-discovering the bell, Schell learned of a new addition to the Smithsonian, dedicated to African American history. He's made contact with curators who are more than just curious about adding the bell to their collection.
"I think that would be a tribute to his legacy, Silas Hamilton's legacy, and you're going to get a lot more people seeing it and it possibly might give our county a little more notoriety.
KSDK