At the top of Stone Church in uptown Saint John, the decorative stone faces carved on the tower have seen a lot.
Those eyes watched uptown Saint John burn in the Great Fire of 1877. They saw the city’s dirt roads turn into paved streets. They were there as sailing ships were replaced by steamboats, then modern cargo ships and oil tankers.
They’ve outlasted generations of Saint Johners.
But whether the church building could survive many more years was recently in serious question.
The main tower was “basically in the process of falling down,” according to Brian Frost, a lead stonemason now working to restore the church.
The metre-thick walls, built from stone ballast brought on ships from Britain, must have seemed indestructible to those who constructed it between 1823 and 1826.
The pull of gravity and the beating from harsh East Coast weather caused the tower to start “leaning pretty bad,” said Bill Somers of Legacy Masonry Ltd., who with Frost is helping lead the restoration project. “The pinnacles at the top were unstable.”
For years, said Stone Church priest Rev. Jasmine Chandra, the tower had been shedding small rocks and pieces of debris — but “we didn’t realize the scope of it probably until 2021,” she said.
At 199 years old, Stone Church survived the Great Fire of 1877 and outlasted generations of New Brunswickers. In recent years, it came closer to collapsing than people realized. CBC’s Julia Wright went all the way to the top to talk to the stonemasons working to make it last another 200 years.
After emergency stabilization work in 2019, this summer Stone Church is undertaking phase three of a major restoration project.
“We’re here just in the nick of time to prevent it from having the same fate as the Gothic Arches,” Somers said. “This job, I would say, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Chandra is feeling hopeful.
“Every time that work is done on the tower, every day that goes by, every stone that’s repointed — I just feel we’re making progress,” she said. “To finally see it come together is is really great.”
But the future is hardly set in stone.
Up to $1.5 million is still needed to complete the project — serious cash for a small congregation of “between 50 and 60 people on a Sunday, and another 10 or so elderly that we visit in their homes and nursing homes,” Chandra said.
Eternal life of buildings not assured
What happens to old church buildings has been a major question for Saint John in recent years, as it has across Canada from major metropolises like Montreal, to tiny Church Point, N.S.
In Saint John, many of the 19th-century church buildings need extensive repairs, and have undertaken fundraising for big restoration projects. Some, like the Church of Saint Andrew and Saint David on Germain Street, remain in limbo: empty, and falling into disrepair.
Others — like St. Peter’s Church in the Old North End, and the Gothic Arches, have been demolished.
Green limestone salvaged from the demolition of Gothic Arches, Somers said, is now being used to restore Stone Church.
“I had a couple of contacts who knew where the stones were going,” Somers said. “When we found out that we’re getting this job, we took some guys over and we stockpiled enough to do the entire restoration.”
A little thrift goes a long way with this project.
Church buildings don’t qualify for many of the heritage grants available to other historic sites.
While Stone Church, designated a national historic site in 1989, managed to qualify for up to $250,000 in matching funds from Parks Canada’s national cost-sharing program for heritage places, it was turned down for both provincial and federal heritage funding because of its status as a religious institution.
Stone Church, Chandra said, has always focused on community outreach — from community drop-in days, a laundry services, and English classes for newcomers, to stepping up to run an emergency shelter in the winter of 2022 for people sleeping rough.
“I’d say probably in the last 40 to 50 years, maintenance to the building has been kind of ignored,” Chandra said, “for the purpose of what we are doing to help the community.”
Stone Church knows what can happen if the building is ignored too long. In 2016, the buildings’ historic ‘L’ wing, situated next to the back of the church, had to be demolished after years of deferred maintenance made it unusable.
Carving out the cash
The main structure of the church will remain covered by scaffolding until this fall as crews undertake the third phase of the restoration: removing the mortar, resetting the stones, and putting steel reinforcement in to keep it from moving in the future.
“I want this to be here for my children, and their children,” said Somers. “That’s the level of restoration that we’re going for. It’s not to make this last another 25 years. It’s to make it last another 200.”
While the congregation has raised about $300,000 on its own, “at this point, we’ve really done as much as we can,” Chandra said, “in terms of trying to get the grants that are out there, and trying to get our congregation to raise money. We really need the community to step up.”
If additional money can’t be found for the next phases, Chandra said, the building will “deteriorate even more in the time that we wait to try to get the funding.”
Stories in the stones
Back up at the top of the church, Brian Frost is perched with one hand on the scaffolding and the other resting lovingly on a stone pinnacle.
“We’re overlooking the Bay of Fundy,” he said. “On a clear day, I can see Nova Scotia over this way. I can see the Harbour Bridge, and the pulp mill, and the port. You can see the whole of Saint John.”
Old buildings are old hat for him. He’s worked on the Van Horne Estate on Ministers Island, the 1797 Windsor House in Saint Andrews, and Bathurst’s historic 1858 Maison Doucet Hennessy House.
But Stone Church, he said, is special.
“I’m very connected to it,” said Frost, perched 36 metres above Carleton Street. “It’s just a beautiful building. For some reason I love it.”
Even if you’re not a religious person, the history written in the stones has a way of reminding you of your place in the grand scheme of things.”
If he gets too tired to drive home after a long day of hammering, chiselling, and repointing — sometimes Frost unrolls a mattress and sleeps on the floor of the church.
Early in the morning, as he sits with a cup of tea, “the stained glass gradually comes to life as the sun comes up,” he said. “It’s immensely beautiful.
“If I’ve got something challenging on the job, I’d plan the job.” But mostly, the building helps him clear his mind.
“It’s almost meditation,” he said.
“Kind of like being with a person. If you’re with somebody a lot, you become good friends.”