St. Peter’s Ray of Hope
Strengthening Historic ChurchMaster carpenter Ray Smith, a member of St. James the Greater in Charles Town, is painstakingly securing the foundation, tediously inspecting trusses, and stabilizing the St. Joseph side of the sanctuary of the historic St. Peter’s Church in Harpers Ferry, WV.
As with any old structure, let alone a church built on a steep hillside, old St. Peter’s has some substantial aging issues which to a layman’s eye may not have been evident, but a master engineer or carpenter could visually suspect some unusual shifting of the structure. Smith was able to identify some of the structural issues by conducting a exhausting inspection that literally had him shimming through rafters and belly crawling beneath the church.
“They were (trusses) that risked splitting in half, and some were rotting away from the outside wall” he said.
The result was the infamous arches on the interior of the church were beginning to sag. This was causing the walls to start to move from the foundation.
Inspections also uncovered that the marble floor beneath the St. Joseph side of the sanctuary was beginning to sink. Smith noted that in the 1970s extensive termite damage had to be repaired, but not all the damage was discovered. Water was also getting in beneath the side altar causing a small tunnel beneath the marble floor, and once removed it was obvious where daylight was making its way between the priest’s sacristy and the main church.
With the help of volunteers and a local Trail Life group, tons of dirt had to be dug out from beneath the building. This was done by an assembly line with five-gallon buckets of dirt at a time – a necessary evil to completely expose the damage and begin the intriquet repairs.
Smith has been working with a small crew to literally brush away and even vacuum the dirt from the foundation in order to reveal any necessary stabilizing.
Smith and his wife Jamie, moved to the Eastern Panhandle after he served in the US Army. The couple have five children – Carter, 17; Elizabeth, 12; Ignatius, 8; Gabrielle, 4; and Gemma, 3.
Ignatius accompanies his father to the historic site now and then – time that is definitely treasured by Smith, who learned his carpentry skills from his father.
“The grandeur of the church is because of the (Irish and German) craftsmanship and care that went into designing, building, rebuilding, and caring for it,” Smith said. “I consider it a great honor to work inside this chapel to keep alive that history.”
His job, as he says, is to just strengthen and secure what was lovingly built by faithful devout Catholics and proud local craftsman throughout the Catholic community’s 200-plus year history.
Stories handed down from generation to generation place the first Catholics in Harpers Ferry around the year 1765.
In 1828, Catholic communities were formed in Harpers Ferry (St. Peter), Martinsburg (St. John later St. Joseph), and Shepherdstown (St. Agnes Church). Catholics had long been in this area of Virginia since 1795, but many had to practice their faith in secret because of the early American distain of the Catholic Church.
How was it that St. Peter’s came to be built on the rocky hilltop?
The first log church built for the Harpers Ferry Catholic community was located near the banks of the Shenandoah River, but was washed away in an 1820’s flood before its first official Mass.
It was Robert Harper, who ran the Ferry the town was named after, who left in his last will and testament in 1782, four acres for the establishment of a Church. The cornerstone for the original hillside church was placed on Oct. 15, 1830.
Interestingly the construction wasn’t just funded by the Catholic community. A May 5, 1830, edition of the Virginia Free Press, noted donations for the construction of the Catholic church, were also from non-Catholics – “liberal contributions have been made by persons of other denominations…”
The first priest to serve the Harpers Ferry Catholic community on record is Fr. Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin (1781). From 1828-1834, Father John Gildea led Catholics and saw the construction of the parish, while he was also pastor of St. John (St. Joseph) in Martinsburg. He was succeeded by Fr. Richard Vincent Whelan (who became the second
bishop of the Diocese of Richmond, and then the first bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling in 1850).
The parish was the only church that didn’t suffer significant damage or attacks during the Civil War. It is said that the pastor at the time, Father Michael Costello (who served from 1857-1867) flew the British Union Jack flag over the predominately Irish parish, which designated neutrality.
It was decided to tear down, expand, and rebuild the church on the original foundation in 1896 to what it looks like today.
St. Peter’s is presently a designated chapel of St. James the Greater in Charles Town. When the diocesan boundaries changed in 1974, the parish along with all others in the Eastern Panhandle became part of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.
Mass is celebrated for tourists and area Catholics each Sunday at 9:30 am.
