OXFORD — Dismantling a 145-year-old building is no easy task.

“A lot of it people don’t see going on,” said Mark Farrell, who with his family began dismantling the former Welchville Community Church in April.

The property at Routes 26 and 121 is being cleared for commercial space. It is less than half an acre.

“We’re still working on it,” Farrell said. He supervises the work to clear the building from the site.

The 1868 meetinghouse was built as a large, double-story auditorium with a choir balcony on one end. At the end of the 19th century, it started to sway under heavy wind, necessitating stringer supports. At the time, it was decided to add on kitchen and dining facilities, according to a 1966 article by Donald H. Mills in the Lewiston Daily Sun.

The building apparently originated as a Methodist-Episcopal Church. It was incorporated in 1956 as the Welchville Community Church, became a privately-owned auction house in the early 1970s and most recently used as an antiques store.

The bell and tower, along with the roof, has been removed but the more tedious work is largely unseen, Farrell said.

Thousands of nails, for example, have been removed from each wall and roof board one by one with the claw end of a hammer. The roof boards alone contained hundreds of nails per foot because of the layers of shingles that were put on over the years, he said.

Farrell said there has been a lot of interest in the reclaimed material, including the roughly 560-pound, 30-inch-wide church bell and weather vane, roof and wall boards, which have been sold, and in the land.

The property is at an intersection where hundreds of motorists pass daily. A municipal wastewater treatment plant is scheduled to be built nearby.

“Location is everything,” he said.

Farrell is available at 207-595- 4164 for more information.

ldixon@sunjournal.com