The tower's voice — twenty-three bells from Le Mans and the great bourdon

1856 – present · the bells, older than the building

The 1856 bells: The Basilica's bells are older than the Basilica. The scholarly bell record — Jeffrey Bossin's study of North America's first carillon, and the TowerBells milestone list of North American tower bells — gives the casting plainly: twenty-three bells cast by Bollée of Le Mans, France, and delivered in 1856, to the old church that then stood on the campus. Each bell bears a Marian name, in the published account of the instrument. For most of their first century the bells were not played by hand at all: the milestone record states they were played from a mechanical drum until that was replaced by a traditional keyboard sometime after the middle of the twentieth century. Weaker carriers in the published record date the bells to 1865 and to 1867; the scholarly record's 1856 governs, and the variance stands here at its size.

The carillon claim, at its documented strength: The Basilica's own tour prints the claim in its hedged form — the tower holds "possibly the oldest carillon in North America," twenty-three bells with a compass of two and a half octaves — and the hedge is part of the fact. Bossin's study supplies the reason: a carillon, under the definition the guilds use, is an instrument played from a baton keyboard that permits musical expression, and by that definition Notre Dame did not acquire a carillon until its bells were fitted with such a keyboard in the mid-1950s; what arrived in 1856 was a carillon-sized set of tower bells sounded by a machine. The claim and its qualification travel together in this record, as they do in the Basilica's own tour. The bells' present working is documented by the student paper: in 2013 The Observer described a computerized system tolling the twenty-three bells, hymns played at noon and at 6 p.m., and the Angelus rung before the hour.

The bourdon: Above and apart from the twenty-three stands the tower's great bass bell, the bourdon, named St. Anthony of Padua, blessed in 1888 during the golden jubilee of Sorin's ordination — a non-swinging bell over seven feet tall. Its weight is printed as the record gives it: the Basilica article's text gives 15,400 pounds; the tour's floor plan gives "some eight tons"; the article's own summary figure gives 15,700 pounds. The text's 15,400 stands as the working figure with the other two beside it, unaveraged. Between the bourdon of 1888 and the Bollée bells of 1856, the tower's voice is, like the church's glass, a Le Mans manufacture ordered through Sorin's French channels — the foundry town and the glass town are the same town, and that is the conception entry's pattern sounded in bronze.

Sources

1. Jeffrey Bossin — "In Search of North America's First Carillon" (carillon-berlin.de): the twenty-three Bollée bells of Le Mans delivered in 1856; the definitional qualification and the mid-1950s keyboard.
2. TowerBells — the North American tower-bell milestones (revised 2025): the 1856 Bollée set as the first carillon-sized tower bell instrument, played from a mechanical drum until a traditional keyboard replaced it after the middle of the twentieth century.
3. University of Notre Dame, Campus Ministry — Self-Guided Tour of the Basilica: "possibly the oldest carillon in North America," twenty-three bells, two and a half octaves; the bourdon at some eight tons; the tower 218 feet.
4. The published history of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart (Notre Dame) — the bells each bearing a Marian name; the bourdon St. Anthony of Padua, blessed 1888, over seven feet, 15,400 pounds, with 15,700 in the summary figure; the weaker 1865 and 1867 datings in circulation.
5. The Observer (University of Notre Dame), 12 November 2013 — the computerized tolling of the twenty-three bells; hymns at noon and 6 p.m.; the Angelus before the hour.