Restoring a centerpiece
Hanover's historic steeple undergoes repairs after workers find rotting wood
By Ryan Kost
Globe Correspondent / July 18, 2008
 Restoring a centerpiece Nearly 150 years after it was constructed, the steeple of Hanover's First Congregational Church faces serious reconstruction. (By Ryan Kost, Boston Globe) |
But after steeplejacks scaled the building to assess their job, plans changed. Water had invaded the church's highest point, rotting the wood within, making it brittle to even the softest touch. For the past few weeks, they have been at work restoring a piece of Hanover's history that symbolizes the town's reason for being.
To understand exactly what this steeple might mean for the residents of Hanover or the parishioners of First Congregational, one need only look back to the town's beginning. Before Hanover could be officially incorporated in 1727, it needed several things: "It had to have a church. It had to have a minister and a school teacher," said Barbara Barker-Kemp, a Hanover resident and a history buff.
"It has a great history, because it was founded when the town was founded," she said. "The church was the town."
The church that stands at Main and Hanover streets is not the same church that was built there more than 280 years ago; it has been rebuilt four times, the last time in 1863, after a fire consumed it. That was when, as far as anybody can tell, the steeple sprang skyward.
"It really is an important part of our church," Barker-Kemp said. She passes the church every time she drives through Hanover's pastoral Main Street, a place untouched by commercial development. "It still gives you the feeling of maybe what it was like years ago."
The steeple itself, however, is only one part of this story. The other part is the team, a father and two sons, working to piece the steeple and its innards back together.
Bit by bit, the three men have been digging into the steeple, tearing away the weak wood from the elaborate inner wooden skeleton and grafting in new pieces. The original steeple was constructed with the strong heartwood of old-growth trees. The new pieces, made of softer lumber, must be bigger.
The process, said Gabriel Lortie, 32, can be time consuming, though he hesitates to call it difficult. "Nothing is difficult," he said. "Some things just take longer."
Gabriel Lortie has been crawling around steeples since he was 3 years old, when his father, Bill Lortie, 60, took him up on one of his jobs, he said. Now the two of them repair one or two steeples a year, in addition to other custom construction jobs.
Steeples are the sorts of things Bill lives for. "You don't go to work with any baggage," he said. "Once you get up there, you're just part of the thing."
He has no plans to retire any time soon. Gabriel knows that, too. "My dad's not young," he said. Still, "he'll climb until he dies. He's not the kind of person to do nothing."
Thursday morning, both men and Gabriel's brother Dakota, 17, worked to finish the restoration. The job will take at least a couple of more weeks to complete, but their part of it, the rebuilding, is nearly done.
Before the men mounted the ladders and began the 110-foot climb to the steeple's tip, Bill had to track down his drill. "I don't think he's going to find that drill," Gabriel said, a little too hopefully. He thinks the drill is too old. He keeps trying to toss it. Bill thinks they ought to keep it around.
A few minutes later Bill returned with the red hunk of metal in his hand.
"It's a fine drill," Gabriel said, acquiescing. "It's just old. A new one would be nice."
Soon, it was an afterthought, and Gabriel bounded up the first ladder. It wobbled with each step. He yelled to Bill, calling dibs on the highest ladder, where there is only room for one. "First one up goes to the top," he said.
Bill shook his head.
On the steps of the Town Hall across the road, two women took their lunch break.
"It's pretty gutsy to go up there and do what they're doing, gutsy and dangerous," said Diane Edge, as she watched the men rebuild history. "I have been watching them for a couple of weeks now. "Last week was even cooler. They were dangling from ropes."