A couple of folks asked me what the original Old Stone Church looked like. Frankly, I’m not able to say because there are no known photographs of it earlier than the two I am including with this post.

If anyone has earlier photos, I’d sure like to know about them.

The first photo is actually a picture postcard that is postmarked September 12, 1909. So far as I know, this is the way the church looked when it was originally completed in 1882. The original church had a stone bell tower that had a “castle-like” stone top.

The second photograph is also a picture postcard that is dated 1915. The third is a photograph that is very common. Many people in the Maple Hill area have prints of this photograph, which appears to have the same features as the second photograph, although taken from a slightly different angle. The fourth photo is a hand-colored picture postcard, that appears to have been made from the third photograph. It is postmarked 1916.

I’m not able to find any mention of architectural detail in Maple Hill News Items from 1882, nor do the original church records exist today. I have written the Eliot Church in Newton, Massachusetts and unfortunately their church has burned three times during the 1800s and they also do not have any records or correspondence.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, Bostonian Charles Pierce, and his Maple Hill Rancher son, William A. Pierce, donated the original 40 acres of land on which the church was built. The Pierces were friends of the Warrens, Thayers and Cheneys, most of whom attended the Eliot Congregational Church in Newton, a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts.

Mark Sage, well-known stone mason who lived near Dover, Kansas, was contracted to build the church, which apparently cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $800.00 to construct. The organ, pulpit furniture, pews, hymnals and a library were all donated by the Eliot Church in Newton.

Warner Adams and Jack and Bill Warren have all told me that in the first decade of the 1900s, while the congregational was still an active church (they didn’t move the congregational into the town church until 1904) there was a powerful wind storm that damaged the top of the stone bell tower and also blew out the big west window in the front of the church. I have been able to find no mention of the storm or damage in the Maple Hill News Items, and have only their oral histories to document the change from the stone bell tower to a wooden frame and shingled top.

In the records of the Maple Hill Cemetery Association, there is mention that boardmember Dr. J. W. Taylor raised funds through a general subscription effort, to replace the roof in 1904. Most likely, the roof replaced was that put on the structure in 1882.

In 1910, Cemetery Association records again indicate the there was a general subscription fund raising effort which redecorated the interior of the church, patching and painting interior walls.

In 1928, there was again major work done on the church. Mrs. Eleanor (Thayer) Brett, daughter of Albert and Ellen (Cheney) Thayer, gave approximately $5,000 to have a new roof put on the structure, floors repaired and refinished, and the exterior stone walls repaired and repointed. She gave the funds in memory of her parents who were charter members of the Maple Hill Eliot Church (Old Stone Church.)

In that same year, the children of Rev. W. S. Crouch, long-time pastor of the Eliot Church and the Maple Hill Community Congregational Church, gave funds to have the large west window taken out of the structure, repaired, restored and placed back in the west wall.

No further renovations have been noted until fire destroyed all of the wooden components of the structure on May 12, 1952. Cemetery workers had clipped the western red cedar trees lining the cemetery drives, hauled the branches to the north side of the cemetery and on a day when the wind was light and in the south, set the branches on fire. A sudden wind shift carried sparks to the roof and the church roof, floor, windows and doors were all burned.

The church was rebuilt and dedicated in 1962. Topeka Architect and father of Mrs. Anne (Raymond) Adams helped with the building restoration and interior design. The Congregational Pilgrim Youth Group worked during the summers of 1960 and 1961 to take off all of the old plaster, clean the walls and prepared them for re-plastering. That work was done by Ronnell Bennett, plasterer and stone mason from Alma, Kansas.

The church was pretty much used in that condition until it was again destroyed by a tornado in April 1994. This time, the roof was blown off, the stone tower blown down and most of the stone side walls were also blown down. The Cemetery Board again decided to rebuild the church and a stone mason from Wamego, a Mr. Jackson, was employed to do the work. Using the original stone and a small amount of donated stone, Mr. Jackson and his workers rebuilt The Old Stone Church to its original specifications, with the exception of the bell tower, which continued to utilize the second design with wooden rafters and singles.

Friends often marvel at the fact that the Old Stone Church has been completely destroyed by fire and again by tornadic winds and like the Phoenix, has risen from the ashes to stand majestically on the hillside overlooking the Mill Creek Valley.