Published: 11/29/2006
Day 6: Blast damages church steeple, stained glass
By Amanda McGregorStaff writer
DANVERS - The steeple and stained-glass windows at the oldest church in town weathered nearly two centuries at the corner of Water and High streets, but they couldn't withstand the impact of last week's explosion.
"It just pushed the building," said the Rev. John Mulvihill, pastor of First Baptist Church.
Now, splintered window frames and large shards of glass litter the pews and the floor of the church sanctuary. Of the six windows that line the walls, three survived.
The windows were made of thick, tempered glass, similar to the style used in English churches 200 years ago, Mulvihill said. The glass did not illustrate pictures but was an opaque, greenish-brown maple color. Some glass panes shattered and others are cracked.
"There are a lot of things we don't know yet until the adjuster comes in, but we don't want mismatched windows," he said. "The tricky thing will be sorting out replacement versus restoration."
The blast also twisted the steeple, so the spire is facing a different direction. A structural engineer deemed the building safe, but the congregation is waiting for insurance estimates and expects an adjuster to visit today, Mulvihill said.
"Our steeple has been tweaked," said Mulvihill, who spent the last few days crawling around the building and the steeple with engineers and inspectors. "It's not going to cave over. It just turned, which is an issue because those are not easy to fix."
A year and a half ago, the church installed Plexiglas storm windows outside the stained glass. Mulvihill wonders if the damage to the church would have been worse without the extra layer of protection. But even though the storm windows are still intact, the stained glass still shot inward, flying as far as 10 feet onto the old-fashioned, bench-style pews.
"On Sunday, people were pretty upset," said Mulvihill, who is now holding services in the adjacent worship hall since the sanctuary is temporarily unsafe. "But they were more concerned about other folks and thanking the Lord nobody was killed."
Established in 1793, the First Baptist congregation moved into the church in the early 1800s, according to Mulvihill, who said the building is believed to be the oldest church in town. He said the building underwent various cosmetic repairs during his four-year tenure at the parish, some of which were undone by the blast.
