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National Park Service Grant Enables Publication on Historic Steeples

Historic American Timber-Framed Steeples

This series of articles discusses the form, function and joinery of selected historic American timber-framed steeples. The series was developed from original research under a grant from the National Park Service and the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not represent the official position of the NPS or the NCPTT.

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The tall, storied steeple of the Middlebury, Vermont, Congregational Church (1806-09) is an outstanding example of Federal architectural design and of substance and sophistication in heavy timber framing. The church is 59 ft. wide and a shallow porch protrudes 5 ft. forward across the central 34 ft. of the façade. A 17-ft.-square tower, or plinth of a tower, decorated with quoins, rises from the porch and from the frame of the roof system, with another 17-ft.-square tower, this one with ranked pilasters and arched niches, some open and some blind, rising another 14 ft. above that. This second stage of the tower may be called the belfry for it carries the large bell.

The difficulty of repairing a church steeple has as much to do with the problems of vertical access, scaffolding and rigging as with any esoteric carpentry involved. The architectural design, framing and finish work it supports, often the most elaborate, showy and prestigious in town, might include octagons or cylindrical forms, tall tapering spires and several telescoping stages, all located on a compact plan but 70 to 200 ft. above the ground (see Part I of the series in TF 83). Repair work can be carried out either from tall scaffolding surrounding the steeple or from ground level on sections of the steeple that have been brought down for easier access. Which method to use depends upon the condition of the steeple and how it was originally built — how amenable it might be to dismantling and re-erection in stages (Lewandoski 1995).

The Castleton, Vermont, Federated Church (1832) is a brick structure in the idiosyncratic Greek Revival style of its builder, Thomas Dake. The church is 60 ft. wide with walls 28 ft. high. At the full-width portico, four fluted wood columns support a closed pediment and blank tympanum above. The steeple, which terminates 132 ft. above grade, rises from the portico and the front of the church, emerging from the roof first as a square tower, surmounted by a large square belfry. A lantern atop the belfry takes the apparent form of an irregular octagon because of the bold expression of pilasters at the corners. Above the lantern is another drum like stage closer to a regular octagon with large console-like ornament alternating with paneled faces, and atop this a tall, thin, tapering spire terminating in a goldleafed ball and vane with directional arrow.

On February 29, 1852, the church was destroyed by a hurricane which struck the spire, threw it directly upon the ridgepole, crushed down the whole of the roof, burst out the side and end walls, and in one movement demolished the entire building. — H. Saddington, A Backward Glance: History of the Syracuse, N.Y., Unitarian Church, 1938.

Church steeples can fail slowly or dramatically, as in the epigraph above, in different ways and from different causes: structural inadequacy, decay, fire, lightning and wind.

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