By Hetty Startup

Last weekend, South Church in Amherst held a rededication service that was open to the public to celebrate the completion of the stabilization and restoration of its belfry and steeple. South Church on Fiddler’s Green (the South Amherst Common) was awarded funds to complete the work on its steeple via the Town’s Community Preservation Act committee under the category of Historic Preservation. (Other categories are Open Space, Recreation and Affordable Housing.) The church is nominated to the National Register as part of an Historic District as a contributing structure. Before the work began, the steeple was visibly listing to the south-east and the bell had been silenced, reluctantly, out of an abundance of caution, with the ‘barrel’ of the steeple clearly struggling to support its weight and reverberations any longer.

Last Saturday, there was standing room only in the sanctuary as members of our Town Council, many of the expert tradespeople who had worked on the project (such as engineers, steeplejacks, crane operators, and contractors), as well as church and community members heard and recalled the history of this church from Sheila Rainford. The presentation also described the fundraising efforts, chaired by Bruce Penniman, for both this much needed project and the parallel events commemorating the 200th anniversary of the South Congregational Church Society, founded in 1824. Interim minister, the Rev. Jim Latimer, presided, offering prayers and perfectly apt closing remarks before the great, undated Revere-made bell, ( #29, to be precise) that had to be silenced in 2022, sounded once again to all in the congregation.

I wish I could recreate for you on paper the specific sounds of the mechanism as we heard it turn and the peeling of the bell as it rang once again. We all listened reverently, perhaps recalling the times, historically, when the bell brought people to prayer (to this day and forward from here) but also for community alarms, such as fire or other major local and national events. This church, as deacon Norma Campbell pointed out, has been not just a Congregational Church for South Amherst but also a church for the entire parish, serving everyone with its food equity programs, or welcoming refugees like the Khmer families (now the subject of an exhibition at the Amherst Historical Museum), or by offering reasonably-priced take-out dinners during COVID that also supported the Food Bank and the Amherst Survival Center. I also wish you had been there to hear the wild applause especially for the specialist crews of builders who made this all possible from a practical perspective.

Hetty Startup lives in Amherst where she serves on the Historical Commission and works with college students. She grew up in London, England and moved to the United States in the late 1980s to raise a family and continue working as an architectural historian. She serves as a trustee of the First Congregational Church, in Ashfield.