OTISFIELD – Travelers along Route 121 in Otisfield will miss a familiar sight for the next few months. The dome of the Bell Hill Meetinghouse, which for 160 years has risen above the trees on Bell Hill Road, was removed Thursday morning to repair the rafters inside.
“What tipped us off” to the problem with the rafters “was that the weather vane had sunk down,” said Bell Hill Meetinghouse Association President Callie Zilinsky.
Contractor Dan Allen of Allen and Co. explained that the 16-sided dome is supported by heavy rafters arranged “exactly like the spokes of a wagon wheel.” The weather vane had sunken into the dome because “enough water had come in where the weather vane is over 160 years that it rotted out.”
Allen attached cables to the dome before cutting through the upper half of the belfry and removing the dome and ceiling of the belfry with a crane Thursday.
“A lot of the structure looks pretty good,” he said. Allen, who has done similar repairs to five other churches, expects the reconstruction to take about two months.
“The building is on the National Registry of Historic Places,” said local historian Jean Hankins, “so it’s important to keep it as close to the original as possible.”
The meetinghouse was built in 1839 and originally served as both a Congregationalist church and a meeting place for the local government. There have been minor repairs to the building over the years, but Hankins said it “looks remarkably the same” as it does in old photos.
Howard Dyer, 99, of Otisfield pointed out where the dome had been struck by lightning in 1924. “We didn’t know it for weeks,” he said, as the building didn’t catch fire when it was struck. “It knocked a hole out through the side,” though, he said. “You could see where it come right down the weathervane.”
The public will have a chance to view the dome at the annual service at 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Silver Moore-Leamon will speak at the nondenominational service, which will be followed by refreshments and a tour of the one-room schoolhouse next to the meetinghouse.
Comments are no longer available on this story