Preserving a Piece of Pelham's Colorful History

When workers started repairing the granite façade and roof of Pelham’s historic Christ Church last fall, they made an unpleasant discovery.

Hiding under a Plexiglass pane and a layer of paint, rot had eaten away at the window frame holding one of the church’s large stained glass windows. In some places, the entire frame and sill were missing completely.

Fortunately, the deterioration was discovered before the windows fell out of the frame. The windows were removed recently for repair and restoration, a process that is expected to cost about $41,000.

Now, instead of a gloriously colorful depiction of Jesus blessing a group of little children, a plain sheet of plywood fills the window opening.

The windows are being repaired by Rohlf’s Stained Glass Studio in Mt. Vernon, which is fortunate on two counts. It’s not only next door to Pelham, but Rohlf’s is also a world-class restoration firm that has restored many valuable and highly artistic windows, including the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Restoring the nearly century-old window is an important, if expensive project for the church.

“It’s part of preserving our heritage, plus the fact that it reflects Jesus’ concern for all his children,” said Rev. Randy Alexander, Christ Church’s rector. 

Christ Church’s stained-glass windows are one of its greatest glories. The most famous window is over a side altar on the right side of the church as you face the main altar.

Depicting the Adoration of the Magi, the window was designed and made by William and John Bolton, sons of Robert Bolton, who founded the church in 1843. The window claims the distinction of being the first figural—that is, showing people as opposed to geometric forms—stained glass window to have been made in the United States.

The window in the Neo-Gothic pointed-arch opening opposite the chapel stands over the original entrance to the church, and its stained glass shows Jesus blessing children, after the Gospel passage in which Jesus says, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.”

The window was installed in 1913 in memory of Richard Stockton Emmet and his wife, Katherine, who were wealthy 19th-century parishioners, according to Art Scinta, a local real-estate broker and the chair of the church’s building and facilities committee, who researched the window’s history.

The restoration involves removing the old lead that held the stained glass pieces, cleaning and repairing the glass, and reassembling the windows with new lead and sealants.

As part of the project, new frames are being built for the windows out of mahogany, a rot-resistant hardwood.

Scinta said the church hopes the restoration work will be finished this spring.

The project comes on the heels not only of the façade and roof work but also a major repair effort in the fall to fix the church’s badly deteriorated natural-gas system.

To help defray the cost of the window project, the church has established a special fund, Friends of Christ Church Historic Windows, for tax-deductible donations specifically for preserving the windows.