LEONARDTOWN, MD – The bells at St. Clement’s Island Museum and Piney Point Lighthouse Museum, two historic sites overseen by the St. Mary’s County Museum Division, will toll on Nov. 11, 2022, at 11:00 a.m. to honor the 116,516 Americans, including the 27 St. Mary’s County natives, who died in World War I.
The program, BELLS OF PEACE: A WORLD WAR ONE REMEMBRANCE, began in 2018 to commemorate the Centennial of World War I; it is a collaborative program announced by the World War One Centennial Commission in coordination with the Pritzker Military Museum & Library, the Society of the Honor Guard of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, whereby American citizens and organizations across the entire country are invited to toll bells in their communities twenty-one times on Nov. 11, 2022, at 11:00 a.m. local time.
Conceived and designed in collaboration with the nation’s veterans of service with the Honor Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the bell tolling provides a solemn reminder of the sacrifice and service of veterans of World War I and all veterans. Bells will be tolled in communities across the nation, in places of worship, schools, town halls, public carillons, and cemeteries, to mark the anniversary of the Armistice that brought an end to hostilities, in what Americans fervently hoped had been “The War to End All Wars.”