APRIL 26 ISSUE ANSWERS: This photo from a glass paper weight is the Romeo Congregational Church erected in 1842 in the same lot as the present one. It replaced the first one built in 1833 that was moved west on Church Street and became the Romeo Academy. Four years later, its members ordered a bell cast in 1846 and installed in the tower. The bell was rung by pulling a rope which was wrapped around a large wheel. This rocked the bell making it ring. Samuel Ewell, the editor of The Romeo Observer, wrote a poem in 1966 about Cyrus, who for 29 years had the job of ringing the bell based on the time of his pocket watch. As the years passed, a third building replaced the one in the photo in 1875. The new third building had a clock to ring the bell. Thus, Cyrus was put out of business. Below is the poem about “Who Dongles The Bell:” WHO DONGLES THE BELL? There’s a man with white whiskers who walks in our streets, With a smile and a joke for each man that he meets, Tho’ his head has grown white and his eye getting dim. He still tells a story and laughs with a vim. Who is this old fellow? You ask me to tell.

APRIL 26 ISSUE ANSWERS: This photo from a glass paper weight is the Romeo Congregational Church erected in 1842 in the same lot as the present one. It replaced the first one built in 1833 that was moved west on Church Street and became the Romeo Academy. Four years later, its members ordered a bell cast in 1846 and installed in the tower. The bell was rung by pulling a rope which was wrapped around a large wheel. This rocked the bell making it ring. Samuel Ewell, the editor of The Romeo Observer, wrote a poem in 1966 about Cyrus, who for 29 years had the job of ringing the bell based on the time of his pocket watch. As the years passed, a third building replaced the one in the photo in 1875. The new third building had a clock to ring the bell. Thus, Cyrus was put out of business. Below is the poem about “Who Dongles The Bell:” WHO DONGLES THE BELL? There’s a man with white whiskers who walks in our streets, With a smile and a joke for each man that he meets, Tho’ his head has grown white and his eye getting dim. He still tells a story and laughs with a vim. Who is this old fellow? You ask me to tell. “Tis Cyrus the Dongler who Dongles the Bell.

You have heard I presume of one Cyrus the Great,
Well, this is Our Cyrus. not second in rate.
He’s the power of old Cyrus, or even the Pope.
For he calls folks to meeting by pulling a rope.
And he struts up to Church with a kind of a swell,
When he goes with the Church key to Dongle the Bell.

Cyrus gazes with pride on the Church and the Steeple.
That holds his great talker whose tongue moves the people,
On Sundays it gives them a sense of devotion,
On week days it sets the whole town in commotion.
Oh, Cyrus takes pride in that magical Spell.
And loves to go up there and Dongle the Bell.

Sometimes we complain that he works like a botch,
That he rings by his dinner instead of his watch,
But what could we do without Cyrus to chime ?
We’ll o’erlook his faults and comply with his time.
For Cyrus we know means to do his work well,
Success then to Cyrus who Dongles the Bell

Cyrus lives moves and goes where he gets lots of fun-
He talks by his Fathers but rings by the Sun,.
He has rung the Old Bell since the day it was hung,
And if Cyrus was not! why! it could not be rung.
If his Old Age is green, why, we all have that spell,
But long as he likes, let him Dongle the Bell.