St. John's Convent, Now Just a Memory

Dateline: July 12, 2022

On June 28, Father Michael Gendron posted a note on the St. John the Baptist Catholic Church Facebook site. He acknowledged that people had "fond memories of the Convent where maybe you went to school, learned piano, taught or had your CCD classes." (CCD is Confraternity of Christian Doctrine)

In that note he explained "the state of unbelievable disrepair" due to water damage and the spread of mold. After talking to people at the Diocese of Manchester and at the church, it was decided that the conditions were beyond repair and the only recourse was to take down the convent. The Diocese offered to pay for the cost of the demolition work.

  SLIDESHOW July 12, 2022

At about 7 a.m. on Friday July 1st, crew members of the NH Demolition company of Auburn, NH began arriving. Kevin Doherty, Sales Manager for the company, explained how they would essentially collapse the building in on itself. He offered a brochure showing their past demolition projects which included Macy's Department Store on Route 3 in Bedford, NH and the Hilltop Steak House on Route 1 in Saugus, Mass.

Just before 8:00 a.m., a big rig turned the corner at Main and School Streets pulling a long flatbed trailer with a huge Crawler Excavator on it. (That's the type with rotating tracks like on a tank.) The driver carefully backed into the paved lot to the right of the convent and disconnected the trailer. Another worker fired up the excavator and slowly drove it toward the convent. The bucket on this machine faced downward and was fitted with a hydraulic "thumb" with which it could grasp a large amount of debris that needed to be relocated.

A Boom Lift (a self-propelled machine with an extendable boom and a large self leveling platform atop the boom arm) in the same lot had to be loaded onto the trailer and hauled away before work could begin. At the same time, workers connected a fire hose to a hydrant across the street. The water was needed to frequently suppress any plaster dust dispersed by falling debris.

At about 8:30 a.m., after filling the excavator with fuel from a tank on a company pickup truck, demolition commenced on the right side of the convent. The first task was to cut and move aside a grove of small trees at the front right corner of the building. The excavator operator punched a hole in the center of the side wall and slowly crushed sections of the building, while another worker operated the fire hose to control the dust. The skill of the excavator operator was evident because, when the machine's boom was fully extended, it was just able to reach the edge of the roof.

By 11:30 a.m., the entire right half of the convent was down. Local residents either walked over or momentarily stopped their cars to witness the demolition. Many people who had memories of the sisters who lived and worked there could only say "So sad."

At midday, the excavator operator must have decided the machine needed some service and changed the fuel filter. Once back in operation, the excavator started at the rear center section of the building and slowly worked toward the tower.

Work stopped once the excavator reached the section supporting the tower. There would be need to be careful preparation work before bringing the tower down. This was put off until after the Independence Day holiday.

Early on Tuesday morning, July 5th, work resumed. As the excavator tore down materials from the rear section, it used its bucket and thumb to grasp large loads of debris, drop the loads in front of the machine, and use the bucket to pound down the debris. With this technique, the operator built a ramp of debris on which he could drive and get closer to the building and extend the vertical reach. You could tell it was not the most solid platform since the excavator rocked back and forth slightly as it raked down sections of the building.

A senior resident named Noella came to watch for a while. She had fond memories of time spent in the convent. She said, "I went to school there. The sisters, who lived on the top floor, taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grade classes. They also gave piano lessons. It was a wonderful place." Other residents reminisced about teaching or attending CCD classes there.

Soon the excavator backed off and a truck pulled up with the boom lift on its trailer. Once unloaded, the boom lift driver loaded several tools onto the lift platform and slowly drove toward the convent, using controls mounted on the lift platform. After raising the platform to height of the tower, he climbed inside the tower and used a Sawzall to partially cut though the corner posts of the tower. Click on the next photo, and click again to see how many nails had popped out of the wall and roof shingles.

Having sufficiently weakened the tower, the excavator driver raised his bucket up to the rear corner of the tower and near the lift platform. The lift operator then fastened a ratchet strap around a corner of the tower and then attached it to the bucket.

By late morning came the moment we were all anticipating. The lift operator "lowered the boom" and backed the machine out of the way. At this time, Brian Arsenault, the Building Inspector, warned the dozen or so onlookers that "the tower is coming down."

The excavator slowly pulled straight down and within about 10 seconds the tower toppled over and broke apart as it hit the excavator's bucket. As the excavator swung its boom back and forth amid the swirling debris, the ratchet strap swung wildly back and forth, reminding one of the T-Rex demolishing the visitor's center in the original Jurassic Park movie.

By early afternoon a light rain began falling and onlookers departed. The demolition continued since the rain helped suppress the dust. By the end of the day, no part of the convent was still standing.

Come Wednesday morning July 6th, two NH Demolition workers were onsite waiting for their dump trucks to come and start hauling away debris. The excavator would then be used to load the trucks. One worker explained that unfortunately all the demolition sites in New Hampshire including Epping were full or otherwise closed. They would have to haul the material to a site in Lewiston, Maine, 120 miles away. Building Inspector Brian Arsenault said that the Lewiston site charged $80 per ton. In addition, there would be the trucking costs.

What You Can Do

Father Gendron ended his note with these unlifting words.

"For all of you who have wonderful memories of the Convent, hold those memories in your heart but remember that the most important building we have is the Church, for here is where we encounter the living God in Word and Sacrament."