A Vermont group coordinating Vermont’s celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birthday of President Abraham Lincoln next week is urging churches to ring their bells for the occasion.
Historian Howard Coffin says bells across the state are going to ring for 10 minutes at 2:12 p.m. on Feb. 12.
Coffin says some of those same church bells rang out to celebrate the end of the Civil War in 1865 and to mark the assassination of Lincoln less than a week later.
Gov. Jim Douglas has signed an executive proclamation commemorating Lincoln’s birthday.
Coffin says the bell ringing is the first of a series of events planned in Vermont this year as part of the Lincoln anniversary celebration.