The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
When the bells burned at Bevin
Before Tuesday’s defeat, Ky. gov had loss of different kind — a factory
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin apparently lost a bid for reelection Tuesday but there was a time, not too long ago, when the Republican begged for aid to repair his burneddown bell factory in Connecticut.
He got it from Connecticut’s Democratic governor.
“America is a country of second chances,” Bevin said in 2012.
After the Bevin Bell factory burned to the ground in 2012, Bevin — the president of the company — went before the East Hampton Town Council in hopes of spawning a manufacturing resurgence.
“I’m challenging the town council tonight: let’s not blow this,” Bevin said. “As long as I’m standing, we’re going to keep making bells.”
Immigration was a hot topic during the Bevin’s race against Andy Beshear. Attack ads alleged that Beshear would allow illegal immigrants to “swarm our state,” and Bevin supported legislation that would prohibit “sanctuary cities” in Kentucky
and ensure that local police cooperated with immigration officials.
But in 2012, Bevin noted that several of the 26 employees at his family bell factory were immigrants who had sought political asylum.
“These are firstgeneration Americans, and these are the only jobs they have had since they came to America,” he said. “If we lose companies like this, where are they going to go?”
The Bevin Brothers Manufacturing Company was started in East Hampton in 1832 by brothers Abner, William and Chauncey Bevin, according to the company’s website.
At the time, bells were the dominant industry in East Hampton, earning the town the moniker “belltown.”
Over the years, the Bevin bell company made sleigh bells, school bells, wedding bells, doorbells and ship’s bells. Bevin Bros. claims to have invented the bicycle bell and, for many years, the New York Stock Exchange opened and closed with a
Bevin bell.
The USS Maine, destroyed by an explosion in 1898 that triggered the SpanishAmerican War, had a bell made by Bevin. The company also boasts of making the little bell in the beloved 1946 Jimmy Stewart movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Lightning struck the factory on Memorial Day weekend in 2012, and it was destroyed by fire. Another local company, P.S.I. Plus, was also destroyed by the fire.
“Connecticut has a proud history as the home of the Bevin Bell factory, and we are putting our economic development tools to work to assist Bevin Brothers and P.S.I. Plus in their effort to rebuild here in Connecticut,” Malloy said in a statement. “We are fortunate that these two companies will persevere despite this terrible fire — there is a lot of work ahead, but the state is stepping up so their employees can get back on the job as soon as possible.”
Bevin worked with Sen. Richard Blumenthal on a “Keep the Bells in Belltown” initiative, that pulled in donations and other assistance from a variety of sources.
To help those efforts, Bevin sold a keepsake — a bell in a box, that came with a 20page history of the company.
Blumenthal purchased two of the boxes, and asked Bevin to autograph them. Blumenthal said then that he will deliver the signed boxes to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden with the message that Bevin Bros. “is alive and well and fighting hard to come back.”