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Church bell stolen from Antigonish County found destroyed

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Violation and betrayal are being felt by the Cape George community after their church bell was found smashed into pieces.

Community member Kate MacEachern made it her mission to find St. David’s United Church’s bell after retrieving Holy Rosary Church’s bell that was taken from Ballantyne’s Cove a year ago.

She shares with our newsroom both bells were stolen by the same thieves from the churches that are 1.7 km away from each other.

“It’s one thing to be so morally bankrupt to rob a church, a churchyard, sacred ground. But it’s something entirely different to take that [bell] into a barn with witnesses and smash it to smithereens,” she expressed.

“I have no idea how low a person can possibly ever be in their life to think that that is acceptable or funny or that they’re ever going to get away with it.”

MacEachern says she heard it was purposely broken down very fast to try to ensure that it was never recovered after her pursuit the other bell last year.

According to her, the thieves made a very good attempt to scrap it in different loads, but she had already contacted all the scrapyards in the area and received a big load of pieces from one metal scrapper, while some other pieces were handed to her directly.

She says it was awful to see the historical bell that was a gift to the church from St. Ninian’s School smashed into so many pieces.

“We did recover about 95% of it. We’ve started reconstruction basically just to see how much is actually still missing and presumably will probably never be seen again,” shared MacEachern.

She says the bell gave a sense of community and safety which is everything the area residents stand for.

The man who managed to fix the bell from Holy Rosary Church is doing some research to figure out the best plan moving forward and the trustees for St. David’s United Church are having a meeting this week to discuss which option or direction they’re going to go in, stated MacEachern.

She says a few people did get paid for sharing information, but the actual reward she posted was not given out.

church bell

Reward and plea for return of sentimental church bell in Antigonish

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An Antigonish community member is taking the recovery of a stolen church bell into her own hands.

Kate MacEachern is offering a reward of over $1,200 to find the bell that was discovered missing on Friday afternoon from St. David’s United Church in Cape George.

She shared with our newsroom how the theft affects her and the community.

“It’s an awful feeling to know that we had potentially people creeping around at night stealing things. It’s depraved because it’s an attack really on our community’s history, everything, our identity. It’s not a good feeling,” expressed MacEachern.

She explained how the historical bell was a gift to the church from St. Ninian’s School.

“If you know who has it, if you know of the location, just do the right thing. This is much more than a bell. It’s part of our community,” she explained.

The RCMP say investigators believe someone used a grinder saw to cut the bell out from its base and loaded it onto a truck.

MacEachern also aided in the recovery of another stolen church bell in Antigonish a year ago by offering another reward.

Halifax Harbour Bridges is also currently looking to find out the origin of a Meneely bell that may have been on a church from the Halifax Explosion era.

church bell

Church bell goes missing from Antigonish

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Community members of Cape George feel a great loss after a church bell was stolen.

That’s according to a neighbour of St. David’s United Church who noticed it missing with a circular saw blade left in its place on Friday afternoon.

Jim Webber-Cook tells our newsroom how it feels to have this historical bell taken.

“Unfortunately, someone had the audacity to take it from not only the church and the cemetery there where it stood, but also, it’s something that means something to the entire community here at Cape George,” shares Webber-Cook.

“It just feels a great loss to the community. It feels like a violation and many people in the neighbourhood here and beyond are upset that someone would go and remove that bell to steal it from the church and from the community.”

He says the over 150-year-old bell was donated to the church by St. Ninian’s School after it closed in June of 1983.

Community member Mary Kate MacEachern has made a Facebook post offering $1,000 reward for the return of the bell.