Architecture, history help historic register nominees By Linda Kellett, Courier-Standard-Enterprise News Staff ST. JOHNSVILLE — You might miss it if you didn’t know it was there. Blending in with two outdoor security lights strategically placed over the front entry doors of the St. Johnsville United Methodist Church is a decorative limestone panel. Carved within its time- and weather-worn, slate-colored face are two words, Methodist Episcopal, spelled out with uppercase letters. Barely discernible from the ground is a date, 1879, the year that the stately brick house of worship at 5 East Main St. was built. Recommended for designation to state and national Registers of Historic Places, the Gothic Revival-type structure and its adjacent Italianate-style parsonage possess distinctive architectural characteristics “of a type, period or method of construction, or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction.” The parsonage pre-dates the church by 13 years. Both were nominated for historic registers in an application prepared by St. Johnsville historian Anita Smith and Travis Bowman, a representative of the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. A copy of the draft application is available as a PDF document on the state office’s website, http://nysparks.com. Smith late last week was quick to credit Bowman with his authorship of the application. “What I did was include all of the historical significance of the application,” she said. Smith said the building that’s now used as a parsonage stands on the site of the one-time home of St. Johnsville founding father, Johan Jacob Zimmerman. In 1798 the Mohawk Turnpike, which coincided with East Main Street (New York state Route 5), was a vital transportation route that early settlers took on their westward journey to the frontier, she said. The Zimmerman house became a turnpike tavern. As noted in the application, it was moved one block east in the 1860s by a subsequent owner, who sold the vacant lot to Lewis Snell — a “prominent village businessman who owned a general store and post office located at the corner of West Main and Bridge Streets— directly across the street from the parcel.” In 1866 — before the building of the future Community House on Washington Street — Snell built the “grandest house in St. Johnsville” at the site, said Smith. “He paid the highest taxes in St. Johnsville — $7,” she said, laughing. “This stuff blows my mind. History isn’t dull at all.” She said the house is significant, in part, because of the bricks and limestone used in its construction. The bricks came from a brickyard located at the site of the former Catholic Church parking lot. The limestone around the base of the house came from the Klock quarry, she said. “Most of the limestone lintels and water tables around the village are of limestone from there. They don’t rot like wood.” “Lintels” are horizontal supports across the tops of doors and windows. Architectural “water tables” are located along the bottom of exterior walls and help divert water from the foundation. As noted in the application, “The lower story windows extend all the way to the limestone water table, the upper story windows have projecting limestone sills. Each of the windows is surmounted by decorative moulded hoods that are curved and ornamented... In the center of the elevation is the main entrance and large upper story window.” The main entrance porch is graceful and ornate, “accessed via a flight of limestone steps, the supports of which are elaborately curved limestone. The entrance itself is deeply recessed, paneled and accented by heavy mouldings and both transom and side lights.” The house has original lath and plaster walls and ceilings, varnished wood floors, “massive” high-quality trim work, large built-in cabinets in the kitchen/pantry area, and “an elaborate turned newel and balusters and scrollwork” on the side of the staircase. After Snell’s death in 1877, the property was sold to Little Falls railroad magnate Gen. Zenas C. Priest for a third of its initial construction cost of about $26,000, the application notes. Priest subsequently sold the Snell house to the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1879, and on Sept. 30, 1879, “[T]he first Methodist Episcopal Church of St. Johnsville was incorporated in order to hold and purchase the Lewis Snell property.”. The application continues, “To raise funds for the construction of the church, a plan was devised to have people buy a thousand bricks at a cost of $4.50 per thousand. Bricks from the nearby Esterbrooke brickyard were again used. Farmers brought their wagons and donated their time hauling bricks to the church site.” Smith said buttresses were used to support the sides of the structure, which features a beautifully designed wood ceiling. As noted in the application, “The celling is treated with decorative varnished wooden planks laid diagonally, horizontally and vertically in various patterns; the treatment covers the original exposed truss work.” Smith said materials for the undertaking were provided by a Mr. Belding, for whom one of the stained glass windows was dedicated. “He was a lumberman with a planing business on Hough Street where Burkdorf’s Lumber is,” she said. “He took the posts out of the center of the church so the ceiling was more free-standing.” Smith’s niece, Melissa Caponera, is the financial secretary of the church. As with the original brick campaign, the congregation recently mounted a campaign to fix or replace some of the buttresses. An earlier initiative, which dates back to 1989, generated enough revenue to re-lead the stained glass windows in the sanctuary. Caponera said the window depicting Jesus knocking at the door was refurbished by her mother, Cathy Bellen of St. Johnsville, and her two sisters in memory of her grandparents, Ruth and Carl Warner. “My mother said it was $1,500 a window. Everybody did it in memory of someone,” she said. Caponera is excited about the nomination of the church and parsonage, noting that the application has been sent to Washington, D.C. “We should have it on the registry by March,” she said. -- Bob Sullivan Schenectady Digital History Archive <http://www.schenectadyhistory.org/> Schenectady County (NY) Public Library