BRADFORD, Vt. — The Bradford Historical Society will host a dedication ceremony for the newly restored Edward C. Sawyer Memorial Chapel on Sunday.
The chapel, which was built in 1912, is located at the Bradford Upper Plain Cemetery on
694 Upper Plain. The ceremony is scheduled to take place from 3 to 5 p.m.
For nearly 20 years, residents have been working to raise money to restore it, said Meroa Benjamin, a member of the historical society.
Bradford resident Edward C. Sawyer donated $15,000 to construct the chapel, said Benjamin, who is also a member of the Bradford Cemetery Association and chair of the town’s Selectboard. Sawyer wanted town residents to have “a proper place to say goodbye to loved ones,” according to research compiled by Benjamin and other community members. The last funeral service they found a record of was in 1963.
“That’s when it started to go into disrepair,” Benjamin said in a phone interview.
The chapel, which is built in the Colonial Revival style, is owned by the Cemetery Association, a separate nonprofit organization that receives funding from the town. The chapel is unheated and 50 to 60 people can fit comfortably, Benjamin said. She estimated it cost at least $100,000 to fix up, using a mix of funds from private donations, allocations from the town and grants.
“We haven’t totaled it up. We’re kind of afraid to,” she said with a laugh.
The town also allocated $32,000 from American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funds, which primarily covered the replacement of the chapel’s original electrical work.
In 2006, the late Martina Stever and a group of other residents formed the Friends of Sawyer Chapel Committee to raise funds for the chapel’s repair, which is listed on the Vermont State Register of Historic Places. Carole Taylor, a Bradford resident who has family members buried at Upper Plain Cemetery, decided to join the committee.
“It’s just a unique building and I think it needed to be preserved,” Taylor said in a phone interview. “A lot of the older residents of Bradford wanted their funeral services there. That was one of our initial goals, to have it up and running so people could have their services there.”
The project list at first seemed endless: the chapel needed a new roof and the woodwork both on the inside and outside needed to be fixed up. The hardwood floors needed to be refinished, windows needed to be replaced and door frames needed to be painted.
“The inside is just so beautiful,” Taylor said.
In the past week, volunteers have repolished the chapel’s 50 original wooden chairs, which are attached in groups of five.
Donnalyn Lyon, a Corinth resident who grew up in Bradford, is one of the volunteers who helped.
“My favorite thing about this beautiful chapel is the feeling I get as I walk through the doors. I picture families worshipping, celebrating and mourning here,” Lyon wrote in an email. “We have scrubbed, brushed and polished the seats from where all of these events were viewed from.”
Those involved in the restoration hope that community members will host memorial services and other events at the chapel, which they will be able to rent for a donation to the Cemetery Association, Benjamin said.
For years, people have driven past the chapel “without appreciating it for what it truly is — a treasure among a field of stones,” Lyon wrote. “We look forward to it being available for many generations to appreciate.”
