John McIntosh looks over work being done to stabilize the floor joists and roof beams in Clarke County's Old Bethel Church. The church, a Virginia and National Historic Landmark, is off-limits to the public until $50,000 in restoration work pulls the roof rafters back in place and repairs the floor in the southwest section where the organ once stood. (Photo by Scott Mason)

     Millwood --The trustees of Old Bethel may not know where the snows of yesteryear are, but they know what havoc they wreaked.

     The church, a Virginia and National Historic Landmark, is off-limits to the public until $50,000 in restoration work pulls the roof rafters back in place and repairs the floor in the southwest section where the organ once stood.

     The former Quaker meeting house, one of the oldest churches west of the Blue Ridge Mountain, stands off Swift Shoals Road, near the Shenandoah River in Clarke County.

     The abundant snows of the winter of 2002-03 damaged the roof.

     John McIntosh, whose wife is a member of the board, is keeping an eye on the restoration as it progresses for the trustees. Kevin Keane of Millstone Restorations in Philomont is doing the work.

     "We've got a lot of faith in this contractor," McIntosh said. Keane has done restoration work for Belle Grove Plantation in Frederick County and Oatlands in Loudoun County.

     The weight of the snow pushed roof rafters toward the edge of the building, destabilizing the roof.

     Old Bethel's rafters are supported by floor joists in the attic, originally tenoned into two large structural beams which run east to west through the building.

     A tenon is a wooden projection on the end of the joist that fits into a hole in the beam.

     Wooden pins driven through the beams and the tenons held the perpendicular floor joists to the beams.

     When the wet, weighty snow nudged the rafters away from center, the pins snapped and the tenons began to pull out of the beams, McIntosh said. Some tenons are as much as an inch and a half out of the beams.

     A jacking system is pushing the tenons back where they belong, McIntosh said. The system is gradually tightened to ease the tenons into place.

     While that work proceeds overhead, crews have ripped out flooring in the southwest corner, where water and insects have damaged another set of floor joists.

     "It looked like the organ was going to fall into the basement," McIntosh said.

     Several years ago, McIntosh said, the trustees reinforced the original joists with 2-by-10-foot treated pine.

     "They were put in incorrectly, at pretty good expense to us," McIntosh said.

     Now, he said, Millstone intends to put plastic on the ground as a vapor barrier to try to counteract the dampness.

     An additional block foundation will be built under the floor toward the center of the church before pressure-treated joists are installed and new flooring is put down.

     "The rest seems to be in good condition," McIntosh said.

     Pews taken out to reach the problem area will have to be reinstalled. McIntosh said the pews are mortised into the plaster wall at one end.

     That makes it "right expensive to get them back in," he said.

     Windows and sills also need replacing, McIntosh said.

     "We hope to have this finished in time for the regular membership meeting in August," he said.

     Ian Williams, president of the eight-member board of trustees overseeing the church, said the repairs aren't covered by insurance. Instead, the trustees have worked out financing with the Bank of Clarke County to get the job under way, while they work to raise the needed $50,000, Williams said.

     "We're going to have a fund-raiser of some sort," Williams said.

     The first records of the old church are found in 1765, when it was referred to as God's Acre on the Hill. Land for the building originally came from Thomas Lord Fairfax in about 1730.

     It was originally a log Quaker meeting house. In 1800, a Baptist congregation took over the site.

     The brick church was constructed in 1836 and finally abandoned in 1930. The Bethel Baptist Memorial Association was formed in 1940 to restore the structure as an historic relic for the people of Clarke County.

     The association is a non-profit organization. Anyone interested in contributing to the restoration can call Williams at (540) 667-1266.