PATTEN, Maine — A spontaneous jam session of strings, drums and vocals breathed new life into Patten’s once endangered 1845 Regular Baptist Church on Sunday.
The celebration was the first public event since the town voted 82 to 5 to save it from planned demolition.
“When I drove up and saw cars parked on both sides of the street it was such a good feeling,” said musician Marcia Pond, who led the charge to save the historic church. “The feeling there was amazing. We are giving it a new purpose and sharing it with others. ”
The session was a thank you celebration for all the people who voted, signed petitions, donated time and money to preserve the church built by Patten’s founders, Pond said.
She started her crusade to save the church from destruction last year because she couldn’t watch another piece of the Patten’s history disappear, she said. Now, preserving the church is a turnabout for a town that had no public spaces for events and had lost at least five 19th-century downtown properties in recent years.
Last September, the Board of Selectmen voted to flatten the historic building and in its place plant a few flowers, add a picnic table and designate it as a small downtown veterans’ memorial, Cody Brackett, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, said earlier this year about the decision.
But with the help of Mainers and people from other states, the Patten Historical Society Preservation Committee to Save the Church has a revitalized event space instead of a picnic table.
“Seeing the joy on everyone’s faces made me realize this was the right thing,” Pond said.
Her quest to save the church, now named the Patten Cultural Center, began with her lone effort to get town officials to reconsider demolition and ended in the town signing the church’s deed over to the Patten Historical Society, following the town vote.
Now, the preservation committee of more than 30 members including restoration craftspeople and grant writers, has been working to open the doors of the church to the community.
About 60 people attended Sunday’s event, with food and entertainment. It was such a hit that the jam session ran an hour over the scheduled time. Fiddler Donna Chase and guitarist Caroline Skinner kicked off the music. Pond, Craig Greenier of Patten and Richard Silver of Bangor were on guitar. Ben Barr of Millinocket played dulcimer, Ron Blum of Patten and Sam Nelson were on drums, and Chase, Skinner, Pond, Barr and Theresa Schmidt of Patten sang.
Local storyteller and retired Baxter State Park chief ranger Chris Drew of Mt. Chase shared humorous tales of Patten’s history, Blum said.
“Everyone kept saying, ‘Let’s do this again,’” Blum said.
Now the Patten Cultural Center will hold regular jam sessions on the second and fourth Wednesday evenings of the month at 6 p.m., starting Oct. 25, according to Blum.
The church furnace needed repairs and Bates Fuel and several workers donated material and time to repair it. The committee is currently raising funds to repair a roof leak to make certain they don’t lose any of the historic painted ceiling and murals, Pond said.
Pond, Blum and others have been carefully removing old bookshelves from the wall and are finding more of the painted mural, she said.
“On the back of one of the boards we found Ira B. Gardner’s signature,” Pond said. “ He was an important Civil War veteran.”
Pond is planning future events for the Patten Cultural Center, including poetry readings and perhaps forming a poetry society, art shows and concerts. In addition to many private donations, a preservation committee member started a GoFundMe campaign for the church.
