During the renovation of St. John's Episcopal Church in 1856, a bell was installed in the new steeple which was built upon the church front. Made in Troy,New York, at Meneelys Foundry, and paid for by funds left by Marcus P. Zills, the bell is still in use to call congregations to service. A native of Virginia, a Free Mason, and an apparent Methodist, Zills served as a postmaster in Thibodaux in the mid-1840s, and became a prominent merchant. He married Mary Louisa Woods at St. John's in 1852. Zills died in December 1853 of consumption, known today as tuberculosis.
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