LEEDS — Members of the Leeds Historical Society met recently at the old Methodist Church on Quaker Ridge with artisan Tony Castro from New Gloucester. Castro has worked for more than  25 years in the field of decorative painting, and some of Maine’s finest historic buildings have had the decorative painting on their walls and ceilings restored by Castro and Company, including Cumston Hall in Monmouth. Cumston Hall’s decorative paint was initially applied by its designer, muralist Harry Cochrane, in 1900.

Castro was particularly interested in the murals at the Leeds church as they had been painted by Cochrane in 1884, when he was 24 years old. In 1850 the Leeds Methodists started to plan for a building on Quaker Ridge, and in January 1854 the church was completed and dedicated. Thirty years later, the church was remodeled, and it was at that time that Harry Cochrane was commissioned to paint the murals.

For many years the building was used as a barn to store apples first by Bush Bros. of Lewiston and later by Murphy Bros. of Leeds, and at some point a poured concrete foundation was put under the building which probably accounts for its present well-preserved condition.

As the group toured the building, Castro pointed out features that allowed everyone to envision the church as it had been 150 years ago. The outlines of the pews are still visible in the paint along the walls and show how they had been arranged in the church. There were remnants of the pew doors which, according to Stinchfield’s “History of the Town of Leeds,” were sold to raise money to construct the church. “At one p.m. (on January 1, 1852), the sale of pews began. Seventeen pews were sold at the meeting and on Jan. 6, seven more were sold. The prices of the pews varied from fifteen to thirty dollars.”

The murals themselves remain surprisingly bright and are typical of motifs used by Cochrane in other buildings. Castro pointed out that some of the edges of the stenciled border were somewhat blurry, probably due to the fact that it was a relatively inexperienced Cochrane who had applied the paint. The stenciled frieze along the top of the walls was one Castro hadn’t seen before in his travels and was apparently one Cochrane had experimented with but not added to his catalog of designs.

There is limited material on the Leeds Methodist Church, and if anyone has more information on it, its murals or its congregation, the Historical Society would love hear about it. Call Pam Bell at 933-4121.

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