By Jim Heimbach
At Historic Port Royal's quarterly meeting last Tuesday evening, Helmut Linne von Berg, past Junior Warden of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Port Royal, described the recent successful rebuilding of the church's belfry destroyed over 140 years ago by lightning.
Speaking in the Council Room of the Town Hall which is newly furnished with 14 portraits of men and women who played key roles in the history of Caroline, he recounted the history of St. Peter's church and, as he showed slides, walked the audience through the new belfry's design and construction.
He told how St. Peter's Church, built in 1836, was given its first bell by Silas Wood of New York. Captivated by a Southern lady in Fredericksburg who attended St. Peter's, he said he was "trading a bell for a belle." Then disaster struck. On Christmas night, 1849, a fire broke out, ruining the bell and badly damaging the church. The church was repaired, and the next year the still-enamored Wood donated a new bell, cast by the Meneely Foundry in Troy, New York.
Later, during the Civil War, despite slight damage by shells from Yankee gunboats, the church survived the war and the bell escaped the fate of many others in the South that were melted down for their bronze to make cannons. After the war, however, on July 6, 1868, lightning struck and destroyed the belfry. The bell though was saved. In the dismal economics of the postwar period, funds were lacking to replace the belfry, so the bell – reputedly one of the oldest and finest-toned bells on the eastern seaboard – was placed in a crude tower built by the men of the church in the graveyard. There it remained.
Then in 2008, Linne von Berg was asked to get estimates on repairing the bell tower. But he thought, "Why repair the tower? Why not rebuild the belfry and restore the bell to its rightful place atop the church?" After he persuaded the vestry and the church membership to undertake the project, funds were raised and in the summer of 2009, architect Douglas J. Harnsburger was engaged. Specializing in historic restoration, he previously supervised restoration of Belle Grove and Millbank in King George County, and Riverview in Port Royal.
Working with his design and an analysis by structural engineer Ned Donalson of Portobago Bay, the Pitts Brothers of Milford began building the new St. Peter's belfry. Of particular interest was their method of determining the bell's weight. Harnsburger said this could be determined from the bell's tone because there's a fixed relationship between a bell's tone and its weight. Accordingly, Linne von Burg, a violinist, played his violin while the bell was rung, and matching its tone, discovered it rings a C-sharp. According to a table found on the Internet, this means it weighs 560 pounds. And so the bell's cradle was rebuilt and the bell received a light sandblasting by Doug Terry.
Working long days, even in freezing weather, the Pitts Brothers finished the supporting framework, roughed-in the belfry, and installed the bell in time for Christmas last winter, when it rang for the first time in its new belfry for Christmas morning service. Heavy snows then halted the final completion of the work, but the project was finished in the spring with the installation of a cross atop the belfry.
To prevent yet another lightning strike from destroying the new belfry, the cross is made of steel and wired to the lightning arrest system installed by John Hamilton. Thus, a lightning rod. The residents of Port Royal are pleased their historic church again looks the way it was intended. Gazing up at the new belfry, many have paid it the ultimate compliment – "It looks like it's always been there!"
Town Councilman Jim Heimbach is a member of Historic Port Royal. He and his wife Elizabeth reside at Riverview overlooking the Rappahannock.