Workers at Trinity Episcopal Church in August delicately removed the fractured spires from the steeple and secured the shattered balustrades around the bell tower.
A lightning bolt from a swift afternoon storm fried the landmark’s highest point and rippled through its 200-year-old frame.
While assessing the damage, Phillip Pearson, the church’s treasurer, spotted a freshly charred strip of floorboard along the bell tower’s base. The lightning sparked a small flame, but the fire somehow had put itself out.
Clarification: As the story byline says, Trinity church is in Rennselaerville (a rural hamlet in the Diocese and County of Albany). Trinity Church in Albany (city) has been closed for thirty years or more.
Such a stalwart little band of parishioners with about 40 ASA and Plate & Pledge (in 2009) of $25K. And Bishop Love has 82 more like them (ASA of 66 or less) in his diocese of 116 churches. A good man with a tough job. Statmann