HARTFORD – The Hartford Community Church has endured a lot in its 175 years. It has been picked up and moved in its entirety, lost its roof to high winds, and has been raised again for the addition of a foundation.
Now workers have ripped up the original floor, replaced the floor joists, and are busy laying down a new floor.
Tom Hamilton, a deacon at the church, is volunteering his time to help with the construction work. “The floor had a nice springy feel to it,” he said Wednesday.
The building’s original supporting beams, held together with wooden pegs, had begun to rot.
A volunteer construction crew removed the 15 original pews, some of which were nailed to the walls. Then the floor was removed, leaving nothing to stand on but the ground under the church.
Peter Therriault donated an I-beam to support the building.
The beam was rolled under the church on pieces of pipe through a window in the foundation.
By jacking up the beam, workers raised the sagging front wall of the church four inches, which “some of the local contractors told us we could never do,” church Elder Wayne Whittemore said.
“An engineering feat of staggering proportion,” Hamilton jokingly called it.
The church survived its first “engineering feat” in 1858.
Originally built in 1830 on Gurney Hill, the whole building was lifted and pulled by oxen two miles to its present location on Church Street.
In 1892, the church suffered another change, though not at the hands of its congregation. A hurricane moved through town during a Sunday service and high winds tore the roof from the church and set it down in a nearby pasture.
The congregation, amazingly, survived with only minor injuries, the church volunteers said.
In the 1970s, the church was raised again while a foundation was poured underneath it.
Last week workers put in new floor joists every 16 inches, a lot closer together than the originals, which were placed four to five feet apart.
They are laying the subfloor this week. The finished floor will be made of oak, with pine wainscoting.
Until the floor is finished, the 30 families that make up the congregation are having services at the North Turner Church.
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