Historic Bell Tower Comes Back To Green – Sans Bell

Branford’s historic bell tower, perched on the Academy, the oldest building on the Branford town green, was badly in need of repair when it was adroitly removed from its perch last fall. Last week, in a complicated set of maneuvers, it was hoisted back up – but without its bell.

As it turns out, the bell tower didn’t have a bell when it was first built in 1820 by the Reverend Timothy Phelps Gillett, pastor of the First Congregational Church. Rev. Gillett taught in the Academy and funded it to a large degree. He even provided the firewood.

The Academy was known then as a ​“select” school back then, and parents paid a nominal fee of $2 a term for their child to attend. The Academy later was the site where Yale College was founded.

So for historical purposes, the tower actually doesn’t need a bell and the one removed after spending 42 years on high was in poor shape. Here is an early rendering of the tower without a bell.

The Academy tower received its first bell in 1972 when the Academy was moved to its present location by the Academy on the Green Commission. It is now owned by the town.

Since then, the building suffered water and other damage and the town and the commission sought ways to restore the building in preparation for its 200th anniversary in 2020. First the tower had to come down.

Enter M.N. Reale Construction

Enter Matt Reale, the owner of M.N. Reale Construction, the company the town hired to restore the tower. As it turned out Reale’s company wound up working on the Academy, one of the oldest buildings in Branford, while at the same time the company worked as a sub-contractor for Munger Construction on one of the town’s newest buildings, the Stony Creek Brewery.

Reale, born and raised in Branford, and his crew – Brian Dostie, Mike Buydos, John Limone, Mark Dostie, John Nilsson, Jim Boisseau – took the tower down last fall. Here he is discussing the task at hand with his crew.

The millwork was done by another local craftsman in town, Jeff Haynes, of J&R Haynes LLC. In an interview Reale said, “We had to mill eight new columns. The building had started to rot from the inside out,” Reale added. “There were areas where water was getting in and rotting the ceiling. It was in poor shape. We had all that milled to match the existing columns.” 

Reale said in an interview the most difficult part of the job was “to actually pull the structure off the building and to bring into our shop. This was a coordination-learning experience. We had a good deal of aerial work. We had to cut everything free and to keep it as safe as possible. And we had to keep the structure from not hitting the ground.”

“The tower weighed 1,500 pounds when we took it off. But as it sits now it is lighter than when we took it off because we are going to rebuild the trim part of it in the air. All the trim is now cut and we will work with that in the air.”

His deadline? “The crew has to finish the trimming before the Branford Festival takes place on June 20.” 

A Meeting to Map Out Lift

Once the tower was brought to Reale’s shop, which is located on Meadow Street, the crew worked on the water-damaged areas, and cleaned the copper. Then the crew custom cut and milled new columns to replace the existing, badly damaged columns. They were reinforced with steel brackets and bolts in order to secure the bell tower. New millwork duplicates the original trim on all of the exterior surfaces.

“So getting the Tower off was a bit unnerving and getting it back on could have been, too. But it went really well. We went smooth and slow and got everything locked in. We thought it all out first. We got together and everyone was on the same page and everyone knew what their specific job was in the air,” Reale said.

Reale said he has known the town green and the Academy since childhood and was honored to get the job. ​“It was really neat to be a part of its history.” 

He added that the Historical Society has decided not to put either the bell or the weather vane back up because neither item was original to the building.

Then again, you never know. 
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