winter 2014 | St. Lawrence University Magazine 15
14 winter 2014 | St. Lawrence University Magazine
Chapel Restoration Begins
After Fire Destroys Steeple
By Ryan Deuel
It happened last fall during Family Weekend, one of
St. Lawrence University’s most time-honored traditions. The
campus was brimming with activity, the weather unseason-
ably warm and sunny, allowing students and their families
to bask in the brilliant fall colors adorning campus.
Fireworks signaled the culmination of another successful
weekend on the evening of Saturday, Oct. 5. As the week-
end activity wound down, the campus was preparing for a
much-deserved rest on Sunday.
It was not to be. Shortly after 5 a.m. the next morning, Sun-
day, Oct. 6, University Safety and Security Dispatcher Jason
Coleman spotted a bright light on the roof of the Gunnison
Memorial Chapel. Campus officers Thomas Stafford, Bryan
Zimmer and Sean LaSala all responded. As they climbed the
narrow, dark stairs leading to the chapel’s steeple, the smoke
became thicker, the air hotter.
It became clear that the chapel was on fire.
Assistant Director of Safety and Security Roxanne Cliff placed
the call to the Canton Fire Department at 5:07 a.m. Within
four minutes, emergency crews arrived on the scene to battle
a growing inferno that was threatening to destroy a North
Country beacon and an icon of the St. Lawrence campus.
Battling the Fire
While flames shot spectacularly out of the steeple and bell
tower for nearly two hours, the fire miraculously was contained
mostly to the tower’s roof and the chapel’s steeple and spire.
Firefighters from Canton as well as neighboring Potsdam,
Gouverneur, Rensselaer Falls and Morley continued to
douse the steeple and spire with water, as gusty winds
fanned the lingering flames like a huge bellow. Concerned
that the water could cause additional damage to the interior
of the chapel, crews decided instead to saturate the spire
in a soap-like fire retardant, hoping to finally smother the
remaining flames.
While hopes were high Sunday afternoon and evening that
the worst was finally over, it later became clear that the fire
had not yet finished its work.
Crews were called back to the scene early Monday morning,
as the wind rose and flames reappeared in the spire — the
highest portion of the steeple, coated in historically weath-
ered green copper and topped with St. Lawrence’s famed
rooster weathervane. Stiff gusts continued to excite the
flames until finally, at 5:27 a.m. — almost exactly 24 hours
after the fire had been discovered — the spire broke, toppled
from the steeple in a shower of sparks and plummeted to
the ground in front of the main chapel entrance in a final
and dramatic ending. The fall damaged a few slate shingles,
a rain gutter and an ornamental tree alongside the chapel’s
front wall as the spire crashed to the ground.
Throughout the whole ordeal, no one was injured. But there
was no question that the chapel had been badly damaged. In
the days that followed, it became clear that even more dam-
age than originally thought had been caused by the fire and
the attempts to extinguish it.
Early reports indicated that the Bacheller Memorial Chime
bells, perched high in the bell tower since 1926, had fallen
and were resting on a concrete pad below. Thankfully, fur-
ther inspection revealed that the 10 bells were still fastened
to their original wooden framework.
While the sanctuary and chaplains’ offices inside the chapel
had been saved from the fire, smoke and water had pene-
trated nearly every portion of the building. Everything from
the wooden floors and pews to hymnals and robes would
eventually need to be removed for cleaning and preservation.
Experts would need to be called upon to further examine
the Estey pipe organ, the chime console and the bells them-
selves. And while badly damaged by smoke and the spire’s
fall, hope remained that at least some of the spire's original
copper could be restored.
Fire officials determined that the fire was electrical in origin,
starting in a conduit close to the wooden roof of the bell tower.
“It was my pleasure to be of service, not only to my community but also to my University. I was
definitely aware of the fact that I was saving one of our most precious icons. I like to think back to
what I read on a stained-glass window in the chapel: ‘We have lit a candle in the wilderness, which
will never be extinguished.’ As much as the irony pains me, it’s true: Nothing can break down the
spirit of this campus.”
–Francis Stripp ’14, Canton Fire Department firefighter and EMT
(Read more in a blog entry by Francis at
)
Chief Facilities Officer Daniel Seaman inspects the rooster that adorned the top of the chapel
spire for 87 years until it fell to the ground October 7, a day after a fire badly damaged the
steeple and bell tower. Bullet holes were discovered in the rooster’s tail; when and how they
got there remains a mystery.
