Frederick Leaser and the Liberty Bell
Near Allentown, Pennsylvania
A mile north of here stood the homestead of Frederick Leaser, a Pennsylvania farmer who played an unlikely role in saving the Liberty Bell from British capture. In September of seventeen seventy-seven, with General Howe's forces advancing on Philadelphia, American authorities decided to evacuate the bell before the city fell. Leaser's farm wagon carried the bell the rest of the way to Allentown after another wagon broke down in Bethlehem, where it was hidden beneath the floorboards of Zion Reformed Church for nine months until the British withdrew.
The bell's remarkable survival during the occupation is owed in large part to Leaser's willingness to make that journey. His grandson later recalled using the same wagon to carry a liberty pole erected on this very spot on New Year's Day of eighteen thirty-three, inscribed with the words Jackson, Liberty, and against nullification.
