Pictures sent earlier:

The Reverend Linda Gard with 1861 collection box found during excavation

The Reverend Linda Gard inside the vestry where the walls have been dismantled, insulation and new wiring installed

The exterior of the Vestry in historic Lower Gloucester

Members work on ‘winter’ church
Vestry project helps bring congregation closer together

NEW GLOUCESTER – Efforts to convert a historic vestry into a winter church has brought people closer as unexpected problems were unearthed along the way.

To save money, church members decided not to heat the circa 1838 First Congregational Church sanctuary this winter. Instead, they’re converting a vestry added to the building in 1871 into a space for winter services.

The Rev. Linda Gard said the project will help avoid paying roughly 12 percent of the entire church budget for heat during the winter.

An energy audit was conducted on the vestry, the place where Gov. Joshua Chamberlain once lectured about the Battle of Gettysburg to the congregation.

Now, volunteers are laboring with professionals to turn the space into a place of worship. Church Trustee Alan Hahnel is the project’s clerk of the works.

Hidden historic artifacts were found while workers were dismantling interior walls and the floor, said the Rev. Linda Gard. She showed off a small collection box dated 1861 as well as a newspaper from 1915.

The project began last fall with the help of Boy Scout Troop 007 of Auburn as an Eagle Scout project. Some 40 fathers and sons wearing hard hats demolished the vestry’s interior walls.

Now, new wiring and insulation complete one phase of the project.

Worrisome destruction of floor boards proved too much to bear last week, said Rev. Gard, noting that beetles had infested and destroyed the floor and sub floor. Church trustees said the project would proceed, though costs were doubled from earlier estimates.

Shaker Community members at Sabbathday Lake heard of the project’s problems and offered stones dismantled from a former Shaker buildings for the vestry’s underpinning.

Shaker Sister Francis Carr said on Saturday by telephone, “Imagine, the Shakers are helping the Congregationalists.”

Shaker Brother Arnold Hadd said he learned about the problem from museum director Leonard Brooks, a member and past president of the New Gloucester Historical Society.

Brother Arnold said, “We have old granite left over from other buildings dismantled in the past and stored in a pile behind the spin house.” The stoned are probably pre-1820 vintage, he said. The stones have been placed now.

“Everything you can’t see is a problem with old buildings,” said Brother Arnold.

Donations to the church project can be sent to the First Congregational Church of New Gloucester, P.O. Box 114, New Gloucester, ME 04260.