By JOSHUA THOMAS

C-S-E Editor

ST. JOHNSVILLE — The Adam and Nellie Horn Foundation provided a $6,700 grant to the St. Johnsville Masonic Lodge to replace the roof overhang decorating  the front and north side of the historic Bridge St. building.

The roof overhang consisted of clay tiles, which had been a part of the building since its construction in 1915. In recent years, many of the clay tiles loosened, or broke, and were falling from the building. “It was becoming quite a safety hazard,” said Mason Don Chaffin, noting the importance of the repairs.

Senior Warden Bill Farber said that barricades had been placed around the building, including at the front corner, blocking the driveway that runs alongside it, so that nobody could enter the path of the falling tiles.

While the grant was issued in Feb. of 2012, work wasn’t completed until November, 2012, with William R. Dorn Construction installing a sloped metal surface, which also helped to cover portions of the building containing exposed holes.

Chaffin noted that the construction couldn’t have happened at a better time, as just days after its completion, the lodge received a notice from their insurance provider that their coverage would be cancelled because of the unsafe roof. The masons were able to provide proof that the roof was repaired, retaining their insurance coverage without a lag.

Adam Horn was a “lifetime member” of the St. Johnsville Lodge, according to Farber, who explained that Horn served as a “staunch mason” for over 50 years. “He just loved masonry,” said Farber, noting that Horn also financed the installation of carpeting in the lodge’s upstairs meeting room.

The Adam and Nellie Horn Foundation was established by the couple’s daughter, Murial, a 1934 graduate of St. Johnsville High School. In 1971, returning to the Mohawk Valley from New York City, where she worked with Pfizer, Inc., to care for her aging parents, Murial lived first in St. Johnsville, then in Fort Plain, “rekindling her strong bonds to both communities,” according to an official foundation brochure.

After she passed away in 2007, Murial realized her dream to support a broad range of causes throughout the communities she loved — St. Johnsville and Fort Plain — when she used the balance of her estate to create the Adam and Nellie Horn foundation in honor of her parents.