Ring in the Fourth of July with a 233-year-old tradition
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ For the 42nd time Americans will ring in the Fourth of July this year, with a programmed celebration to mark another type of ringing in a 308-year-old Illinois community west of the Mississippi River.
Rain and a flooding river has closed the main road leading to the Kaskaskia Bell Shrine so the celebration will be held on the east side of the river with a view of Kaskaskia.
The 42nd Annual Independence Day Celebration is planned for 12:30 p.m. Monday, July 4, 2011, at Fort Kaskaskia State Historic Site overlooking Kaskaskia Island. On that date in 1778 after George Rogers Clark and his troops occupied Kaskaskia without firing a shot during the Revolutionary War, the bell was rung for freedom. King Louis XV of France gave the bell to the church of Kaskaskia in 1741. The bell has become known as the Liberty Bell of the West; it is eleven years older than the Eastern Bell and has been featured on the History Channel in "How the States Got their Shapes" program.
The principal address this year will commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the War Between the States. Although the skirmish at Prairie du Rocher, may be the only known conflict between the Union and Confederate troops in Illinois, sentiments on both sides were deeply felt. Representing the Confederate Army: Colonel Auston E. "Gene" Smith, USAF (Ret.), and representing the Union Army: Ted Mueller, Reenactor, Decorator & Painter, will take us back to the events and ideas in the lives of our ancestors 150 years ago.
Don Welge, President of Gilster Mary-Lee Corp. of Chester, Illinois, will give opening remarks and will be master of ceremonies at the hour-long patriotic ceremony, which is free and open to the public. Pastor Mark Willig, St. John Lutheran Church, Chester, will give the Invocation and Benediction. Other remarks will be made by Military Veteran Danny James; Emily Lyons, Liberty Bell of the West Chapter, NSDAR and Curator, Randolph County Archives & Museum representing Kaskaskia Island residents; Kenneth Ragland, Commander of the Chester V.F.W. Post 3553; Roland Wagner, Commander of the Chester American Legion Post 487; Mayor Joe Eggemeyer of Chester; Mayor Deborah Gahan of Perryville, Missouri; and Darrell Duensing of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.
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The Chester Municipal Band directed by Steve Colonel will perform patriotic music, Brittany Williams will sing patriotic selections Taps will be played by Brian Roth in memory of our Patriots. Visitors will hear the ringing of the Liberty Bell of the West to signify that freedom is still alive for the American people.
Area Boy and Girl Scouts, as well as French Marines from nearby Fort de Chartres State Historic Site commanded by Bill McKnight, will also participate in the ceremony. Visitors, please bring lawn chairs, although some chairs will be provided under tents.
The Chester V.F.W. and American Legion Posts, the City of Chester, the Kaskaskia Church Foundation, and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency are sponsoring the Independence Day Celebration.
Refreshments will be available before and after the program.
Kaskaskia Bell State Historic Site, administered by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (www.Illinois-History.gov), is located on a 14,000-acre island a half mile above the Chester, Illinois, Bridge. It was once physically connected to the State of Illinois as a peninsula, but an ice dam and spring flooding April 18, 1881, caused the Mississippi River to change course, thereby separating the village that was Illinois' first state capital from the rest of the state. The channel dredged through the peninsula can be seen from Fort Kaskaskia.
A small brick building on Kaskaskia Island today houses the 650-pound bell that was cast in France as a gift to the French who first settled Illinois. Exactly two years after the Declaration of Independence was signed, the "Liberty Bell of the West" rang out to celebrate the capture of Kaskaskia, the westernmost military action of the Revolutionary War, by Lieutenant Colonel George Rogers Clark. Twenty-five years later in 1803 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (brother of George Rogers Clark) visited here and added men and supplies for their Expedition of Discovery.
Fort Kaskaskia is located at 4372 Park Rd, Ellis Grove, IL 62241. From Hwy 3 north of Chester, turn west onto Shawneetown Trail and follow the signs.