Today’s installment from college newspapers past has to do with one of the iconic images — and sounds — on the Samford campus.
The carillon was donated by Col. William Rushton, Jr. in honor of his family, or his father, Franklin Rushton, depending on which version you read. The Rushtons came south with William Rushton, Sr., in 1881, just after the end of Reconstruction, when Birmingham was only 10 years old. Senior became an ice magnate, a city alderman and put the first cement paving on the ground. His son, Franklin, ran the family ice company, was a chamber president and was a big part of getting World War II vets jobs in the community. Birmingham Ice & Cold Storage Co., meanwhile, was in operation for 92 years before closing up in 1973. Anyway, Franklin’s son Col. William Rushton, Jr., fought in World War I as a young man and rose through the ranks as a reservist after the war. He, like many of the prominent Samford men, was an insurance executive. If it was a regionally prominent organization in the 20th century, Rushton had a role in it. He died in 1987, but he had several years of listening to the beautiful carillon he helped place on campus.
The author of the above article is today a pediatric disease physician in Kentucky.
The campus official he references, Evan Zeiger, Sr., was an Auburn man. He came to Samford in 1956 and retired in 1984. He died just a few years ago. His son, a local neurosurgeon, died in a plane crash in the Gulf the next year.
I actually have a copy of the original notes for this next piece. The editor submitted a list of questions to the university president and he answered from on high, via an assistant’s typewriter. (This being a few years after he shut the journalism program down, a long and interesting tale for another day, which led to pieces like this proto-listicle.)
Bells about to be installed …
This was a standalone photo and, just to the right, you get a sense of the varying sizes of the bells, which allows for the different notes. The first 49 were cast in Holland and, together, weighed five tons. They were originally above one of the chapels. When Rushton came along they added 11 more bells and it all moved to the library, which is what is going on here:
Breaking news! Here are the library steeples, old and new! (Being located in the center of campus, no one ever had an opportunity to see them … )
Finally, the bells were put in above the library, the weather cooperated and the steeple work was completed, the clavier arrived and was put into place and Mr. Knight was ready to play.
Steve Knight, who has been doing this here for almost 40 years, has long been one of the most interesting people on campus:
I recorded a snippet in April of 2012. Here’s what it sounds like when you stand just under the bells:
Curiously, if you are in the library, you hardly here them at all. That’s by design.
I’ve never been up the ship’s ladder, as Knight called it, so I’ve never seen him perform. Seeing Knight actually play is a marvel, check out this feature piece one of our students produced:
The carillon is a wonderful feature on this beautiful campus. We’ll call it a day right there. Plenty to go around for tomorrow, be sure to stop back by when you can.
