OTTERVILLE, Ill. • A 140-year-old brass bell from a southern Illinois school has been found under debris in a bus garage.

Jersey Community School District administrator Ken Schell says the bell dates to 1872 and weighs 550 pounds. It belonged to Hamilton Primary School in Otterville. The school building is on the National Register of Historic Places and was last used for classes in the 1970s.

The (Alton) Telegraph reports the Jersey Community School Board would like to see the bell returned to the school.

The bell was made by Buckner Foundation, and the inscription reads Vanhausen and Finch, Cincinnati. Schell says he measured the bell and it is 2 1/2 feet high and has a 93-inch circumference.

Otterville is about 40 miles north of St. Louis.