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MECHANIC FALLS — Since 2003, the First Congregational Church, now the Anglican Church of the Transformation mission, has been without the steeple and weather vane that topped it since it was built in 1848.
After some detective — and artistic — work by a church member, however, the weather vane has been recreated.
Both the steeple and weather vane has topped the church since it was built 169 years ago, but when the roof was replaced in 2003, it was discovered that the steeple had extensive wood rot and had to come down. Because of age and metal fatigue, the weather vane fell apart into several pieces when the steeple was disassembled, and it was stashed away in hopes that one day it could be put back together.
Those pieces stayed stashed between some joists until Bill Quackenbush, searching the crawl space to check out the wiring so he could install outside lighting, came across them.
Quakenbush, a member of the Anglican church, said he likes putting things back together again the way they were. So he did.
The Anglican church took over the building from the town last fall. The town had taken ownership of the church in 2009, when the congregation dissolved and gifted it to the town’s historical society. By 2016, the building had become a financial strain, and the town looked for new ownership. Members of the Anglican Church of the Transfiguration believed the church’s location was perfect for an Anglican mission church for the Oxford Hills/Lewiston-Auburn area. The town agreed, and the property was deeded over to the church, with the condition that the historical society could still use it.
The Anglican Church has been conducting church services in the building since December. Quakenbush, after finding the weather vane, started looking for information on what it originally looked like. His daughter Pamela saw a weather vane on a church in New Hampshire that appeared almost the same and took a photograph of it. From that point on, Quackenbush has spent hundreds of hours replicating it, and now has a finished weather vane. All the church has to do now, he said, is rebuild the steeple.
PHOTO CAPTION: Bill Quakenbush displays the rebuilt weather vane that once topped the 169-year-old First Congregational Church in Mechanic Falls. The church now serves the Anglican Church of the Transformation. (Submitted photo)
