Weathervane Returned To Hawley School Rooftop

By Nancy K. Crevier

There was a cold bite in the air Friday morning, December 10, when Brooks Farm Metal Works owner Stuart Hall and his assistant Amilcar Garcia climbed into the man bucket of the 33-ton crane from Quick Pick in Shelton, and were swiftly carried up more than 125 feet to the rooftop of Hawley School; but it was nothing, said Mr Hall, compared to the bite of the breeze gusting about them as they hovered over the cupola and began work on replacing the Hawley School weathervane.

The weathervane had been in the hands of Mr Hall for several weeks, while he repaired water damage and replaced deteriorated and missing sections of the copper eagle and quill weathervane that has topped the school for more than 90 years. The main support rod had worn down to the point where the entire weathervane listed dangerously several degrees off center, and had to be replaced with a stainless steel rod.

While Friday’s weather was not Mr Hall’s first pick for replacing the newly refurbished piece, it was a job that he was eager to see completed before the first snow fell.

The task was not a simple matter of hoisting up the weathervane and securing it, though. “I had to do a little carpentry work once I got up there, first,” said Mr Hall. Dangling over the edge of the basket as the wind gave it the occasional unwanted push, he removed small weathered boards from inside the cupola that had stabilized the old rod, and replaced them with new boards so that the pedestal would sit securely. Nails nine decades old wanted to stay stubbornly in place, so the two men had to hammer and break off some of them in order to nail the new boards into place.

“Then I had to drill a new hole in the center for the pole, and that took some measuring and re-measuring to get it right,” Mr Hall said. “It’s the kind of thing you want to do right the first time when you are dealing with the cold and working out of a basket way above the ground,” he said. Hand warmers tucked into his gloves were a huge help in keeping his fingers warm enough to work.

With the boards in place, he was able to affix the pedestal, and then insert the rod into the newly drilled hole. Clamps were attached to the rod to keep it from slipping down inside the cupola.

More carpentry work followed. “It took a little while to build up some more wood then, in order to support the flute section of the weathervane on top of the pedestal,” Mr Hall explained.

After that, the work progressed quickly. “We put the weathervane over the rod, screwed it in place, did some caulking, made sure the bird was secure, and a little after one o’clock, it was all in place,” he said.

Although the men spent nearly four hours weathering the elements, “The time passed amazingly quickly,” Mr Hall said.

Even so, he was more than a little happy to jump into the warmth of his truck and down a cup of hot coffee. “I don’t think I felt warm again until three in the afternoon,” he declared.

He is pleased to know that the iconic weathervane is now fastened safely atop the school, and in good enough condition to keep it up there for at least another 90 years. “It gives me a good feeling to know I accomplished something like this,” he said.