From Timber Framing 87 March This article is fourth in a series to discuss 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.
On February 29, , the church was destroyed by a hurricane which struck the spire, threw it directly upon the ridge-pole, crushed down the whole of the roof, burst out the side and end walls, and in one movement demolished the entire building.
Structural inadequacy. Steeples can be structurally inadequate to bear their own dead load. In the steeple of the First Congregational Church of Brattleboro, Vermont , the tower girts bearing the sleepers that carry the accumulated load in descending order of the spire, lantern, belfry and clock stages are too slight for their span and have broken without the presence of rot.
More often the problem is located at a non-steeple element. The result is the backward lean of the steeple, sometimes alarming, and the locally depressed roof ridge seen on hundreds of wooden churches in the eastern US and Canada. Water itself is not the entire problem, but a high moisture content invites wood-destroying organisms and insects to begin their work. Water entering midway up a steeple runs down the posts, enters brace mortises on the way and pools at the bottom in mortises for the tower posts in the bearing sleepers laid across the lower chords of the roof trusses.
At the Salem, New Jersey, Presbyterian Church , the middle stages rotted, requiring complete reframing, while the healthy spire required only recladding Figs. Given the immense size and good condition of the steeple above, it was left in place somehow supported on jacks, probably in successive segments while the rotted timber was removed and replaced by built-up plank.
