GRAND DETOUR – When local residents made the decision more than 20 years ago to repair the dilapidated stone church on South Main Street, they did more than remove an eyesore. They reconnected to the town’s earliest days.

Today, St. Peter’s Church recreates the austere faith that early settlers brought with them when they carved out a community along the big bend in the Rock River in the decades prior to the Civil War.

“The idea was to restore it to the way it would have appeared in 1850, when the church was originally completed, and to make it as historically accurate as possible,” said Claudia Nelson, chairwoman of the St. Peter’s Church Preservation Committee.

That meant not only patching damaged stones on the church’s exterior, but also returning the interior to its original appearance.

“There are no visible lamps or light fixtures,” Nelson said. “The electrical work is under the floor and in the ceiling.” The heating and air conditioning equipment is hidden in the balcony.

The pews, communion rail, and lecterns have been restored to what they would have looked like when Philander Chase, Episcopal bishop of Illinois, conducted the first confirmation there in May 1850.

The bronze bell that sits atop the church also is original, cast in 1854 in New York before being shipped to its new home.

Computer analysis even was employed to make certain the pews and interior walls were returned to their original appearance. Some furnishings that were not original, such as an altar installed in the early 1900s, were removed during the restoration.

All that meticulous labor has produced a church that offers a glimpse into the town’s past and the faith that inspired its original settlers.

Entering the small church, one is struck by its elegant simplicity. There are no stained-glass windows or elaborate accessories, only the basic necessities.

That austere ambience was by design. “There was no fancy stuff,” said David Nelson, Claudia’s husband and also a member of the Preservation Committee.

“It was known as ‘low’ Episcopal,” he said, meaning many of the ornate characteristics of “high” Episcopal churches intentionally were shunned.

The simple décor reflected a type of unalloyed Christian faith that many of the original settlers brought with them when they migrated in the 1830s and '40s from their native New England, David said.

Accurately restoring the church involved a great deal of research, Claudia said. She credits Grand Detour residents Jim and Jeannne Gorman and the late Matt Ostergrant, a historical preservationist, with spearheading the initial effort to bring the church back to its original glory.

“They are the ones who conceived the idea for the historic restoration and initiated the work,” she said. "They really did a first-class job. We can take pride in what they accomplished.”

The Gormans and Ostergrant created a nonprofit and began their work in 1989. It took a decade of fundraising and work to complete the project. In 2000, the church marked its sesquicentennial by once again opening its doors to visitors.

Although the church does not have a formal worshipping congregation, the Preservation Committee has special events, including weddings, occasional concerts and an annual Christmas program the second Sunday in December. It also is open during special events in the village, such as the annual Grand Detour Arts Festival.

“We host about five weddings a year,” Claudia said. The church “can seat 85-90 comfortably. Last Christmas, 88 people were here for the program.”

Fundraising remains an important component in maintaining the church. It operates on an annual budget of about $7,000, said Nelson, who joined the committee in 2008 shortly after moving to Grand Detour. Some money for maintenance comes from Grand Detour Township, but a sizable portion is raised from donations and special events.

For Claudia and husband David, the opportunity to become part of the church’s preservation team presented itself shortly after they moved to Grand Detour in 2006 to be closer to their son, Karl, who lives in Elgin.

“We sort of stumbled onto Grand Detour,” David said. “We saw this house for sale, and that was it.”

David, a retired Lutheran minister, said he and Claudia, a former English teacher, fell in love with the house that just happened to be across the street from the church.

”We noticed the church, but we were really focused on retirement. We didn’t know much about it,” David said.

But as the couple settled in to their new surroundings, they became captivated by their adopted town’s history. It didn’t take long before they discovered that the stone church across the street played a major role in that history.

The more they learned, the more involved they became. They joined the 10-member Preservation Committee, and Claudia eventually named chairwoman.

Now they relish delving into local history – and playing an active role in preserving it.

“We are not longtime residents, but we have really become interested” in the town’s story, said Claudia, who now fills her spare time researching genealogies of Grand Detour’s original families, many of whom made up the original congregants of St. Peter’s.

“It’s just fun to see the connections,” she said. “In those days they didn’t go far and wide to marry, so everything is very interconnected.”

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ST. PETER'S

GRAND DETOUR – The first migrants from New England who settled what would become Grand Detour brought their faith with them.

Initially, they met to pray in the simple stone and brick homes they built. As the town’s population grew, though, so did its need for more formal places of worship.

That need prompted Philander Chase, Episcopal bishop of Illinois, to send a young seminarian named Abraham Joseph Warner to Grand Detour in 1847 “to assemble a congregation and establish a church,” according to information supplied by Claudia Nelson, chairwoman of the St. Peter’s Church Preservation Committee.

As a result, the parish of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church was organized on May 15, 1847. Within 3 years, the congregation raised enough money to build a small stone chapel along Main Street.

In the beginning, the parish boasted a congregation of 45 members, including village founder Leonard Andrus and other community leaders.

When the railroads bypassed the town later in the century, though, Grand Detour began a long period of stagnation, and the little stone church gradually fell into disuse.

Local residents occasionally would join forces to repair the structure, and at times the little church even experienced something of a renaissance.

For instance in the first decade of the 20th century, William Cone Andrus, son of Leonard Andrus, initiated repairs to the church, and the Rev. Albert B. Whitcombe, rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Dixon, began holding services there during summer months.

Whitcombe loved the little stone church so much that, before his death in 1934, he requested to be buried on church grounds.

With Whitcombe’s passing, however, St. Peter’s once again entered a long period of neglect, and the church gradually began to deteriorate.

In the 1980s, a group recognized the church’s simple beauty and historical significance and decided to fix it. The goal was not just to mend the church’s crumbling architecture, but also to restore it to the way it was when the first worshippers sat in its pews.

The project would take a decade of fundraising and hard work before it succeeded. In Aug. 1999 St. Peter’s held its first event – fittingly, the wedding of Whitcombe’s great-granddaughter.

Since then, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church once again has become an integral part of Grand Detour’s social fabric. Although it does not have a formal congregation, the church hosts a variety of events and functions each year.