Turning back time with repairs at meeting house

FALLS VILLAGE — The last time The Lakeville Journal checked in at the South Canaan Meeting House, the buzz was about the petrified cat found in the crawl space beneath the venerable building.

On a follow-up visit on Monday afternoon, Aug. 24, while showing a reporter the new bathroom, Bob Gilchrest of Allied Engineering noticed something in the corner.

Bending over to inspect it, he said, “Unh-huh.”

The object in question was a dead bat. 

That’s bat, not cat.

Not petrified, either. This was a freshly dead bat.

It looked like a leaf at first glance.

But leaves don’t have tiny feet and a mullet haircut.

The Falls Village-Canaan Historical Society and the town of Falls Village are restoring parts of the building, thanks to a state Small Town Economic Assistance Program grant of $200,000. 

Some aspects of the plan had to be scrapped — notably, a wheelchair elevator in the rear of the building was too expensive for the budget.

But the steeple has been repaired and waterproofed, new windows installed and a sorely needed upgrade to the bathroom will soon be operational.

Gilchrest said the contractor has been elsewhere recently, finishing up another job, but in the next couple of weeks the front of the building will be jacked up about an inch so the sills can be fixed, and rotten wood removed.

The entire job should be done by the end of September.

“When we’re done here, it will all look like it’s been here 200 years.”

Except the bat.