The cathedral carillon

It is a hushed New Year's morning on Nob Hill -- cold and still. The sounds of honking horns and cheering revelers have long since ceased. At nine o'clock Grace Cathedral's bell carillon rings out over San Francisco -- not the joyful tintinabulation of the previous midnight, but the familiar hour tune and ring. Neighbors wake to their cathedral alarm clock. The New Year has begun.

Grace Cathedral's carillon was the gift of Dr. Nathaniel T. Coulson, a British-born San Francisco dentist and realtor. "The Bells Shall Ring" by Rosa Baldwin (1940) tells his colorful life story. Coulson, a Methodist, spent his life savings to realize his long-held dream of a Grace Cathedral carillon, and to erect the cathedral's Singing (north) Tower to house it. During his last years, Coulson subsisted on a dollar a day to realize his lifetime goal.

The cathedral carillon consists of forty-four bronze bells, cast and tuned at the Gillet and Johnston Foundry of Croydon, England, in 1938. Silver coins were added to the metal of several bells, following the now-discredited legend that silver improves a bell's tone. The bells range in weight from 11 3/4 pounds to 6 tons, and cover 3 1/2 octaves. The 6-ton bourdon bell, the hour bell, is the largest European-style (waisted) bell in the western United States. This 6-foot-tall writer has stood inside the great bell (when not ringing) with headroom to spare! The larger bells of the carillon are inscribed with names and quotations supplied by the cathedral's Dean J. Wilmer Gresham, to honor San Francisco's various religious traditions. While the bourdon bell is inscribed with words of Christ, the smaller bells are named Paul, Isaiah, Loving Kindness (St. Francis of Assisi), Joy, Wisdom, Thanksgiving, Prayer, Benevolence, and Golden Rule. A smaller bell is named Sympathy, in honor of Sunday School organist Abigail Santo. As a young orphan in Cornwall, Nathaniel Coulson noticed a tear run down Miss Santos' cheek when the other children refused to sit near him, seeing his workhouse clothes.

The bells were cast before the cathedral tower was completed, so they spent their first years on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay as the carillon of the Tower of the Sun, centerpiece of the 1939-40 Golden Gate International Exposition. Fairgoers were delighted to hear familiar tunes pouring from the sleek tower, alternating with Bach fugues played on it by blind piano virtuoso Alec Templeton. On windy days the bells were audible in Berkeley, 3 miles distant. The carillon rang out from its Singing Tower home for the first time at Christmas Eve, 1940, and the tower and carillon were formally dedicated in 1943. At first the bells chimed every hour, day and night, but insomniac neighbors soon complained. Today the bells ring the hours from 9 am to 9 pm, with late-night peals only at Christmas and New Year's Eves. The angelus toll -- a reminder of God become human in Jesus Christ -- is added to the hour ring and tune ("Grace Chimes"- 1957) at noon and 6 pm.

Pouring the bronze for the great bell

The hour tune and ring are controlled electronically, but the carillon can also be played from a small console in the nave gallery. The bells are "hung dead" in fixed position, while the clappers move inside each bell, or outside in the case of the bourdon. The bourdon bell is clamped to a wheel, so it can also be swung, or tolled, and is thought to be among the largest tollable bells in the nation. When this great bell ceases ringing, one can feel its surface continue to vibrate for over a minute.

The bells have rung at many historic occasions -- D-Day, the memorial service for William Randolph Hearst, the centenary of San Francisco's cable cars, and many other events. The bells have tolled the number of Golden Gate Bridge suicides, and their tunes have pleased Nikita Khruschev, who sent an appreciative note during his stay at a nearby hotel. Perhaps they reminded him of the Kremlin's cathedral and clock tower bells.

When Coulson first arrived in San Francisco in 1875, he found his way to Grace Church, predecessor of the cathedral, a church then lacking a bell tower. He entered and knelt in prayer, asking for guidance. "Suddenly a though occurred to me" he later related. "If ever I will have the money, this church will have its chimes." His vow came true 65 years later. The carillon became "My gratitude to this cathedral" for its predecessor, "the first to comfort my lonely soul in this strange land." Coulson's intended that his ashes be placed in his tower, but it took 45 years for this wish to be honored. In 1990 his ashes were at last placed in the cathedral columbarium, two floors below the belfry. Former cathedral verger Lori Lamma recalled the moment -- "Its odd, but it is as if the tower had not been completed before now." More than a century since his first vow, Nathaniel Coulson is now joined forever with his beloved bells.

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