Howe Building bell tower at Perkins School for the Blind. The Perkins complex was designed in 1910 by R. Clipston Sturgis. The Howe Tower was named for Samuel Gridley Howe, founder of Perkins. Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins, a prominent Boston trader in slaves, furs, and opium, then presented his mansion and grounds in Pearl Street for the school to be held there in perpetuity. This building being later found unsuitable, Colonel Perkins consented to its sale, and in 1839 the institution was moved to the former Mount Washington House Hotel in South Boston. It was henceforth known as the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum (or, since 1877, School for the Blind.) The bell tower houses eight carillon bells made by Whitechapel bell foundry in England and installed in 1912. The bells have not been available for ringing since the early 1980's. The pitch of heaviest bell is E in the middle octave. The bells were a gift from a descendent of the founder.
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