More than 100 years ago, a church bell first rang to summon newly freed slaves to worship in a frame church built after 1866 to replace the brush arbor that had sheltered the newly organized Woodlawn Missionary Baptist Church since its 1865 separation from the white Woodlawn Missionary Baptist Church in Nutbush under the leadership of Hardin Smith. The bell, engraved C. S. Bell & Co. of Hillsboro, Ohio Yoke #28, was purchased when the frame church was built. In the early 1920's, when the present brick building was constructed, the bell was moved from the old frame church and hung in a wooden tower in front of the building where the new tower now stands. According to historical records, the bell ringers were “Old Man” Ben Blue at the old frame building, followed by Bro. Johnnie King Reed, Bro. Eli Jarrett, Bro. Henry Nelson Bond, Bro. Sam Mann, and Bro. Johnnie Jarrett. Each toll conveyed a significant meaning understood by the members: it was rung every Sunday morning on the 1st and 3rd Sundays for Sunday School, on the 2nd and 4th Sundays for regular services, on the morning of a funeral service and when the funeral procession approached the church grounds, and daily during revival week for all three services. Its sound could be heard for miles around and was often relayed by other bells on adjoining farms. Messages were sent by bell ringers from the 1870's through the early 1940's, when the old wooden tower weakened and had to be dismantled, and the bell was stored away in silence until it was rehung in a new brick Memorial Tower as a symbol of God's call to worship and service.