Charavay Memorial Carillon

*Location:

   Chapel
   New Brunswick Theological Seminary
     (Reformed Church in America)
   Seminary Place and College Avenue
   New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
   LL: N 40.50176, W 74.44803

   Hertzog Hall

   Garden carillon
   Dutch Pavilion
   New York World's Fair

Site locator map

*Player:

   (none)

   Kenneth Walsh '83

*Contact:

   Rosemary Carroll, Director of Development
   New Brunswick Theological Seminary
   17 Seminary Place
   New Brunswick, NJ  08901-1196
   T: 732-247-5241   F: 732-249-5412
   E: development@nbts.edu

*Schedule:

   Rarely played; electrical mechanism
   suffers intermittent partial or
   total failures.

*Remarks:

   Bells cast in 1938 in Heiligerlee;
   original installation had baton keyboard.
   Bells stored 1965-80 (clavier not
   kept); then installed on new chapel with
   electrical mechanism.
   The seminary shares much history
   with Rutgers University, which surrounds
   it, but they are no longer formally
   associated except for cross-registration.

*Technical data:

   Electric-keyboard carillon of 25 bells
   Pitch of heaviest bell is C  in the itty-bitty octave
   Keyboard range:     C C   /    ----  
   Transposition is up two octaves
   There are no missing bass semitones
   There is no practice console
   The whole instrument was installed in 1980
     with bells made by vanBergen in 1938
   Auxiliary mechanisms: nB    
   Tower details not available
   Year of latest technical information source is 1986

The NBTS Website has no information about the carillon.  Information about this campus can be found from the About Us page by following the Who We Are link, and optionally on to the Our Setting page.  The campus photograph which appears on those two pages shows the circular chapel in the distance at left; the bells are in an open frame at the center of the flat roof.

Illustrations © New Brunswick Seminary, used by permission:

2003 photo (48KB) of present chapel (un-named)

1960 etching (165KB) of Hertzog Hall

1890 drawing (400KB) of the campus, Hertzog Hall at center

1862 photo (32KB) of Hertzog Hall, not long after construction

Where this work lies in the sequence of output of the vanBergen bellfoundry, in this region and in the world.

Ranking among all North American non-traditional carillons by weight.
Ranking among all North American non-traditional carillons by size (number of bells).
Ranking among all North American non-traditional carillons by year of completion.

Why this instrument was a milestone in North American traditional carillon history (1938).

Index to all tower bell instruments in NJ.

   This page was built from the database on  2-Mar-25
   based on textual data last updated on 2025/01/15
   and on technical data last updated on 1992/12/31