READFIELD -- How many men does it take to lift a 750-pound, nearly 100-year-old clock into a tower dozens of feet high?
Five, plus a pulley system. Or at least that is what it took Thursday morning, when the recently restored 1930 Readfield Union Meeting House clock was returned to its original spot.
The clock's installation is one of the final steps in a decadeslong renovation project at the Readfield Union Meeting House, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
Completion of the project is expected by the end of next year with the reinstallation of the rest of the building's tower, as well as its spire, which was blown off in a storm in 1916 and never replaced.
The brick church -- the second oldest in Maine -- was built in 1827 as a multidenominational hall.
Nancy Durgin, president of the nonprofit that owns the Readfield Union Meeting House at 22 Church Road and is spearheading its renovation, said the building was originally intended to serve as a community gathering place because there were not enough people in the area to build and maintain several churches of different denominations.
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The church was renovated in 1868, including new pews and flooring that are intact today. Portland artist Charles Schumacher painted the walls and ceiling that year in trompe l'oeil artwork, depicting realistic three-dimensional columns on flat surfaces. In French, trompe l'oeil means "deceives the eye."
Durgin said the meeting house is the only fully preserved exhibition of Schumacher's 51 commissioned works in Maine.
"You can tell, being inside, why this building ought to be restored," Larry Dunn, who has volunteered to help the project for years, said.
Durgin said that as Readfield's population grew and new churches were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, money to maintain the building dried up and the church fell into disrepair.
Since it was founded in 2009, the nonprofit organization has spent more than $600,000 in donations on repairs and restoration, beginning with the building's foundation. Schumacher's paintings alone took several years to restore.
Advertisement Related At Readfield Union Meeting House, restoration of historic paintings part of 5-year project
The clockwork mechanism before being hoisted Thursday into the tower at the Readfield Union Meeting House at 22 Church Road. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
Costs for materials and labor have increased significantly in recent years, and the nonprofit group is still soliciting donations. In 2020, it received a $50,000 matching donation from a Hallowell couple who helped kick-start the next phases of the renovation, but Durgin said the work is only getting more expensive.
The organization has also taken on the restoration of a nearby vestry, built in 1809. Since inside renovations were completed and the buildings were opened to the public, the nonprofit group has hosted concerts, dinners, book talks and several other community events at the buildings.
Related Readfield Union Meeting House restoration sparked by Hallowell couple's $50,000 donation
John Perry, the treasurer of the meeting house nonprofit organization, said the various delays the project has gone through over the past 15 years have primarily been waiting in yearslong lines for experts -- including Preservation Timber Framing Inc. of Berwick, the company that did the clock raising work Thursday -- to take on the project.
The interior of the Readfield Union Meeting House at 22 Church Road, photographed Thursday. The church was renovated in 1868, including pews and flooring that are intact today. Portland artist Charles Schumacher painted the walls and ceiling that year in trompe l'oeil artwork, depicting realistic, three-dimensional columns on flat surfaces. In French, trompe l'oeil means "deceives the eye." The meeting house is the only fully preserved exhibition of Schumacher's 51 commissioned works in Maine. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
The 1930 clock raised into the meeting house's tower Thursday morning was restored by David Graf, who also restored the historic city hall clock in Cambridge, Massachusetts, among many others.
's more a question of getting the right help, people who can do the restoration work," Perry said.
About 10 longtime supporters of the project, along with a small group of students from Maranacook Community High School in Readfield, watched while the workers hoisted the clock 30 feet into the air.
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The onlookers were silent at first, perhaps nervous that such a precious piece of equipment was dangling from a rope while more than a dozen feet from the ground.
By the end, however, many said they were impressed by the engineering.
"I think that deserves a round of applause," one onlooker said, then beginning to clap.
The students quickly began to applaud, too.
A worker then stuck his head out from the scaffolding surrounding the tower and waved to those below.
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filed under: cmnews, historic preservation, maranacook community high school, National Register of Historic Places, readfield maine
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