Steeple set to be raised Monday

WATERFORD — It took 21 gallons of paint, 20 tubes of caulking and enough boards to fill a pickup truck bed three times, but the North Waterford Congregational Church steeple is near completion and due to be raised to the top of the church Monday.

"All the repairs have been done. We're putting the final coat of paint on now," said Albert Cummings of Stoneham, who along with his fiancée, Diana Douglas, and a host of volunteers have been reconstructing the steeple over the last two weeks.

The steeple was taken off the 1860 church on Five Kezars Road in North Waterford after a painter's scraper went right through the wood. The rot was apparently the result of water damage over the past decade or so. Parishioners say the steeple, which sits over a belfry containing a Holbrook bell cast in 1872, has been tilting for some time and had been repaired a number of years ago, but water had begun to damage it again.

Cummings and Douglas have been working on the 40-foot steeple on the front lawn of the church. The project is projected to cost about $12,000, but Cummings said it's coming in way under budget thanks to volunteers and donations, including the paint from a Windham dealer. Another donation was the wood around the eight-sided steeple.

"That was our house wood," said Douglas of the three truckloads of wood milled from Cummings' grandfather's land in Windham. No problem, Cummings said. There's plenty more pine trees to fell.

The church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

ldixon@sunjournal.com