What’s in your garage? A lawnmower, paint cans, some bikes? Amy Miller had a 1,000-pound bell in hers. It was made by the son of U.S. patriot Paul Revere.

Ms. Miller lives in California. The bell was made in Massachusetts. After 188 years, it’s finally coming home.

Joseph Warren Revere was Paul Revere’s son. He took over his father’s Massachusetts foundry. (In a foundry, people melt and remold metals into useful or beautiful shapes.) He cast the bronze bell in 1834.

An oxcart hauled this bell to Ohio. How did it get to Ms. Miller’s California garage?

Ms. Miller’s mother was a real estate agent. She helped people buy and sell houses and land. She worked on the sale of a church in Vermilion, Ohio. The new owners didn’t want the church’s historic bell. Ms. Miller’s mom made a $1,000 donation to the church in exchange for the bell. Her family kept it—even after moving to Chino Hills, California.

“It became the joke of the family,” says Ms. Miller. “They’d open the doors to the garage and ring the bell every Fourth of July.”

In time, the bell passed to the next generation. A collector in Texas offered Ms. Miller $50,000 for it. But he mentioned he might melt it down. Ms. Miller and her brother decided not to sell. They chose instead to donate the bell to the Paul Revere Heritage Site museum in Canton, Massachusetts. Now the public can see it too.

“I don’t need a bell in my garage, and this bell has a story of its own,” says Ms. Miller. “We’re the keepers of our history.”

Why? Objects from history have value because of their rarity—and because they can remind people of a shared past.