BY JANE KAUFMAN
The Berkshire Eagle, September 28, 2024
SANDISFIELD — Bibles and Pilgrim hymnals of varying hues and lineage peek from the backs of the pews of the 150-year-old New Boston Congregational Church.
These are vestiges of churches in Cheyenne, Wyo.; Winsted, Conn.; Florence and South Egremont.
In a time when churches are closing and buildings are on the market in the Berkshires and beyond, this congregation is not only active but growing.
On Sunday, New Boston Congregational Church will celebrate its 150th anniversary with a 10 a.m. service. Special guest will be prior pastor, the Rev. Michael Gantt. A cookout will follow at 11 a.m. at the 4 Sandisfield Road church.
Its current pastor, the Rev. Eric Kriebel, is credited with the church’s growing popularity.
When he began preaching in 2017, average attendance at monthly services was eight to 10. Today, twice-monthly services draw about 50 people.
As a bivocational pastor, he works fulltime with the U.S. Postal Service in Torrington, Conn. On Sundays, he commutes with his wife and 6-year-old son, who both help out.
Throughout its history, Sandisfield has had a total of six churches — three Baptist and three Congregational — but the Little Brown Church is the only one still operating as a house of worship.
The buildings holding the Sandisfield Historical Society and the Sandisfield Arts Center both housed congregations. Sandisfield’s most prominent church burned down. Another was moved stick by stick out of town, and a Baptist church that stopped operating in 1838 can’t be located by Ronald Bernard, a local historian who serves on the town’s historical commission.
While the New Boston congregation dates to 1874, the chestnut building dates to 1879.
WALKING INSIDE
Entering the church through a small narthex, the sanctuary has vaulted chestnut beams rising two stories and a small amount of colored glass.
The central chandelier is original although the four surrounding it were later gifts. A small Estey pump organ built in Brattleboro, Vt. dates to 1894. It’s in working shape now that organist Christopher Park chased out the mice and refurbished it.
THE ARCHITECT
Neither the architect and nor the benefactor are known. After spending a year researching and writing a 400-page history of the church and its pastors, Bernard has a theory.
He believes Orlo Northway, then the wealthiest man in New Boston, financed the building of the church after the collapse of the Lee & New Haven Railroad, a failed scheme of which Northway was president.
“The town lost 25 to 30 percent of its population between 1870 and 1880 because of this,” Bernard said. “Farmers went bankrupt. Everybody invested … his rich friends and poor farmers. And everybody lost everything.”
Northway did it as a sort of penance, Bernard said.
“This man was mortified, he was shocked, he was sad, he felt personal responsibility for what had happened,” Bernard said. “And it was his way of sort of giving back and making up something.”
Northway’s carpenters Lewis and Ransom Gladdings built the church, Bernard said.
A KINDNESS
Karlene Blass first came to the church 18 years ago. After Kriebel started leading services, though, she began coming regularly. She used an example to illustrate why.
“We were getting ready for a church supper,” Blass said. Concerned about a family member, she asked Kriebel if she could call him at some point for counsel and prayer.
“He said, ‘Sometime is now,’” Blass said. “He took me to a quiet place and I explained my concerns. We prayed together right then and there. … He’s just like that. He hears you when you talk to him. He remembers everything you tell him.”
ABOUT KRIEBEL
Kriebel was born in Lansdale, Pa., and graduated from Abeka Academy in Pensacola, Fla., a Christian school that doubled as a home-school co-op.
His great-great-grandfather was a traveling minister for the Evangelical Congregational Church in Pennsylvania.
He remembers sitting in his great-grandmother’s pew. “I can still picture the stained-glass windows in that church and it looks very similar to this church,” he said.
A CALLING
His first jobs were working in a nursery and delivering newspapers.
He attended a Christian camp when he was 15. At about the same time, his church had a bus ministry that went to immigrant camps in Florida.
“And I saw such poverty, and such need,” he said. “And we’d go down and take them food, and we’d bring the kids out and take them to church.”
He realized then that he wanted to minister to people.
HOW HE GOT TO SANDISFIELD
In 2017, Kriebel was serving as assistant pastor at a church in Connecticut.
He was vacationing in the Berkshires with his family and noticed a sign outside a church that said the Rev. Toby Quirk, a guest pastor, would be preaching.
Kriebel learned Quirk had written a book about rural ministry and emailed him about obtaining a copy. Quirk said he would give him a copy if he came to Easter Sunday services at the Little Brown Church.
Then, in May, Kriebel returned for another service. Quirk announced that he was leaving and that Kriebel should be the next pastor. That day Kriebel got the key to the church.
“It was really a surreal experience,” Kriebel said.
LOOKING AHEAD
While the church is growing, it also has some costly needs: painting, a new roof, work on the belfry, a cement floor for the basement and a new furnace.
The parish hall behind it will probably have to be demolished.
Kriebel hopes there will be a way to preserve the building.
“I go into these churches now and they seat 800 people and there’s 50 people and you go: This clearly doesn’t fit,” Kriebel said. “But we had 60 people and it felt full. This size building has really fit the need for those 150 years.”
Jane Kaufman is Community Voices Editor at The Berkshire Eagle. She can be reached at jkaufman@berkshireeagle.com or 413-496-6125.