Fort Frye namesake descendant presents family bell
Photo by Kristen Hainkel Left: Sharon Farnsworth, president of the Oliver Tucker Museum, presented Fort Frye’s history during the school’s Homecoming Assembly while Terri Frye (right) watches.
Photo by Kristen Hainkel Terri Frye, Lt. Joseph Frye’s descendant, explains the history behind the bell Dave Barrett (right), member of Fort Frye Alumni Association, is holding.
Photo by Kristen Hainkel Left: Sharon Farnsworth, president of the Oliver Tucker Museum, presented Fort Frye’s history during the school’s Homecoming Assembly while Terri Frye (right) watches.
Photo by Kristen Hainkel Terri Frye, Lt. Joseph Frye’s descendant, explains the history behind the bell Dave Barrett (right), member of Fort Frye Alumni Association, is holding.
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BEVERLY -- A piece of local history has come home for residents in the Fort Frye Local School District.
Terri Frye, descendant of Fort Frye namesake Lt. Joseph Frye, presented the school with a historic bell that belonged to his family during their Homecoming celebrations Friday.
"It seemed like it belongs here," Terri Frye said when asked why she decided to give the artifact to the school. "This is a piece of history you all will understand. This area is rich with history. You just can't turn around without finding something fascinating that happened here."
Frye, a resident of Roseville, Minn., spoke to students about the significance of the bell during the Homecoming Assembly. Settlers of the original Fort Frye traveled by river to New France (present day New Orleans) to sell and trade goods. Once there, they would tear apart the wood, sell it and return to Ohio on foot with pack mules. Lt. Frye's son Joseph Frye Jr. was one of those settlers.
"Muskingum River was uncharted, neither was the Ohio and only part of the Mississippi," Frye said. "There are canoes that tried to go up river,but you couldn't bring much back if you had a canoe. So mostly it was done by foot and pack mules."
Frye said the bell was kept on a pole on her family's farm from the early 1800s to the 1980s when her father John Chapman Frye sold it.
"It was always on a pole, which is why it rings so pretty on a pole, but it has to be loose and free. But it's heavy. It's made of bell metal," she said.
Also during the Assembly, each Homecoming Court candidate was asked what Fort Frye meant to them. Superintendent Stephanie Starcher noticed a pattern in the students' answers.
"If you listened to the kids when they said, what does Fort Frye mean to me, so many of them said, it's community, it's community," she said.
Starcher said one of Frye's ancestors used to travel to other forts and teach lessons to the settlers' children. She said the bell was a symbol of commitment to education.
"It's just think it's a good symbol of our legacy and how education is important, along with a sense and community and protection," she said.
Starcher said the bell will most likely reside either in the school's main office or history teacher John Bostic's classroom.
The idea for Frye's visit came about when Fort Frye Alumni Association member Dave Barrett was searching on the internet. He had found an article about Lt. Frye's descendants and saw Terri's name, but he had no way to contact her.
"I made some random phone calls. I had no idea who I was talking to or who to ask for. I got in touch with her daughter-in-law and left a long-winded message on her voicemail … The next day I'm driving along and I get a phone call. She says, 'this is Terri Frye.' I about ran off the road," he said. Frye said she was glad she returned Barrett's phone call.
"This school is great and the kids are marvelous," she said. "My dad and grandfather (Harley Frye) loved this area. I sent time here at the family farm when I was young."
Kristen Hainkel can be reached at khainkel@newsandsentinel.com