St. Peter's Episcopal is a lovely little brick church built in 1898 tucked away on a side street off of Main street. According to an article by Sylvia C. Dodge in the May 2020 issue of Vermont's Northland Journal the church was designed by Henry Vaughn (1845-1917), an English emigrant who specialized in Gothic design. His work ranged from this little church in a small Vermont town to three of the seven chapels in the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City.
The restoration work began in 2016 with managing the repointing of the building, regrading and drainage work, rebuilding the entrance ramp and paving the driveway. S. A. Fishburn, Inc. then restored the windows, both frames and sashes. Previous repairs to the window frames has been completed in the 1970s when the stained glass panels were installed.
One of the discoveries that came to light during this project was that the wood of the window frames had been severely compromised by 80 years of powder post beetle damage. Given the brick construction the powder post beetles, which appear to have been introduced to the building in the 1940s, were concentrated in the window frames. In many areas the paint was simply a seal for sawdust and the large frames had to be removed in pieces. In order to effectively repair the frames they were removed from the building and restored in the shop. Prior to refinishing all of the frames were coated with a borate solution to stop any future insect or fungal damage.
The sashes also underwent a full restoration and were reinstalled with weather stripping. The middle sahes in the three sash units were returned to functional casement windows as they were originally built.
In addition three small window units and their frames were restored and the exterior trim of the stained glass window behind the altar was repaired and Allied low-profile aluminum storm panels were installed.
