E. WOODSTOCK — The East Woodstock Congregational Church (EWCC) is planning to restore the four original monumental Tuscan order columns that are an important architectural detail of this beautiful New England Congregational Church.
The church is now requesting the community’s help to restore the aging columns. With everyone’s help, the church will stand ready to serve the community for another 180-plus years. Please consider donating to help an important historic institution and landmark in our community. Donations may be made out to EWCC-Column Restoration project, EWCC, P.O. Box 156, East Woodstock, CT 06244.
More information can be found on the church website, www.eastwoodstockchurch.org
The church is planning a presentation, “From Meeting House to Church: The Evolution of Early New England Religious Structures,” by Myron Stachiw at noon  March 11 at the church on Woodstock Avenue. Stachiw is East Woodstock resident and the project’s Historic and Architectural Research consultant. This presentation will provide insights into the process of transformation of form and design from the 18th century meeting house to the 19th century church in the larger American context and the more local and regional context, with a special focus on the East Woodstock Congregational Church and the strategies and methods employed in the research and analysis of the church building and its columns.
The Meeting House was dedicated in 1834 following the design and form of meeting houses being built in the south-central Massachusetts and northeastern Connecticut region during the 1820s and 1830s. The staved Tuscan columns (similar to the construction of a wooden barrel) have weathered the last 184 years (including the 1938 hurricane), but they have suffered some deterioration and undergone several phases of minor repair over the years.
The columns are in need of repair and restoration to their original form to ensure that the surviving original materials will endure the next 184 years.
The EWCC has been collaborating with the CT Trust for Historic Preservation and the CT State Historic Preservation Office, first receiving a matching grant from the Trust, completed in 2015, to study the condition of the columns and to make recommendations for their repair. In 2017 the EWCC received a matching grant from the CT Historic Preservation Office Historic Restoration Fund to complete the necessary repairs and restoration of the columns. Work on the columns is scheduled for this summer.