Trust fund aids church work

FREEHOLD — The ongoing restoration of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church on the corner of Throckmorton and West Main streets received a boost recently with additional grant money from the New Jersey Historic Trust Fund.

Church officials learned they will receive an additional $139,784 from the fund for the restoration of the steeple and roof systems, according to Bruce Edmunds, who chairs the church’s Building Restoration Committee.

In early 1998, the church received a grant of $313,012 from the state fund to help continue with the restoration of the historic church.

"We discovered that we would not have enough money to complete the necessary work on the steeple so we applied for additional grant money," Edmunds said.

The steeple is now in Farmingdale where it is undergoing framing and other preliminary work, Edmunds said. Ira B. Matthews, a restoration contractor, is working on completing the restoration of the steeple.

According to an article in the News Transcript on April 2, 1998, the documented parts of the steeple were shipped to Greensboro Point, Vt., where new framing was constructed as a special workshop project of the National Timber Framers Guild of America.

"The steeple was taken apart, documented and shipped to Vermont in a container, where the new framing was constructed and shipped back here," Matthews said. "We’ve assembled the framing here and made other new parts. We expect to have it put back together by the beginning of November when it will be brought back to Freehold and put up."