Pleasantville Fire Department needs help finding missing 100-year-old bell: "It hurts"

PLEASANTVILLE, N.J. (CBS) -- It has been hanging outside a firehouse in South Jersey for more than 100 years but a historic bell has gone missing and now the fire department is asking for the public's help to get part of its history back.

"You can see that it was basically drug up the alleyway," Eric Moran said.

Traces of dirt stretch down the alleyway between the Pleasantville Fire Department and the police department on North First Street. This is where Battalion Chief Moran said a more than 100-year-old bell was stolen.

"To have that history gone from the fire department, it hurts," Moran said.

The Pleasantville Fire Department was established in 1896. The several hundred-pound bell was made a few years later in 1903.

It's one of the last original pieces of the department but Moran believes it was taken a few days ago.

"Not something that one person can move, it took a bit of planning," Moran said.

CBS News Philadelphia was told the bell was covered and was sitting on a pallet behind the building as the department was designing a memorial plaque for the front lawn.

"The mount was just created this past week so that prompted our members to go back and try and measure everything up, and that's when they found out that the bell was gone," Moran said.

Moran believes the thieves used a piece of machinery to take the bell and said a pallet jack was found about half a block away behind an abandoned building.

The department has contacted scrap yards and posted this photo on its Facebook page, which has now been viewed more than 11,000 times.

"You don't think anything like this would happen especially to a fire department," Moran said.

The battalion chief said he has been in contact with police but the department is not looking to file charges. They just want the bell back, no questions asked.

In:
• New Jersey
• South Jersey