PIERREPONT - When word was received last year that the town museum needed a new roof, donations to complete the job began pouring in, including one from an anonymous contractor that gave the museum the new roof it so badly needed.

“The publicity sure has helped a lot,” Town Historian Barbara J. Daniels said. “People need to now their donations are amounting to something.”

With a new roof on the museum, Ms. Daniels said she decided to use the donations to continue renovations at the museum, which most recently included the purchase and installation of two new doors with deadbolt locks to help protect the collection inside.

“The old doors were interior doors,” Ms. Daniels said. “Anyone could have came along and just kicked them in. I was so afraid of coming in one day and having everything be gone.”

Next up for the museum is a new paint job.

“The plan for this spring is to scrape the building and get it ready for painting,” she said, adding the museum also needs new panes of glass for “three or four” of its windows and repairs made to the ceiling inside the building.

“People don’t expect us to do much in the winter, but it will be nice for people to see what we’ve done and what we’re planning to do,” Ms. Daniels said.

In addition to the roof and new doors, Ms. Daniels said repairs were made to the building’s foundation in 2010. Also at that time the floor, walls and bookcases inside the building were painted.

“They were a hideous green. We had to get them painted,” she said referring to the bookcases.

However, in order to continue work on the building more donations are needed, as Mr. Daniels said the museum’s account is now down to just over $300.

“That won’t paint the building,” she said, adding her goal for the summer is to get a fresh coat of paint on the museum.

“The windows could wait. They’ve been like that for a while and haven’t hurt anything yet,” she said.

Donations to the museum can be sent to the Town of Pierrepont; 864 State Route 68; Canton, NY 13617.

“We’ll take any donations we can get and put them in the museum fund,” she said, adding so far the community’s genorosity has been overwhelming.

“The community has been really, really good with donations, especially in these tough economic times. People have been wonderful,” she said. “I can’t wait until May to get going again.”

Checks should be made payable to the town of Pierrepont with “musuem fund” written on the memo.

Thousands of readers like you have made Northern New York Newspapers the number one ranked website* for local news and sports coverage in the north country.

You can continue on to this article in a few seconds, or you can visit one of our websites:

• Watertown Daily Times
• The Ogdensburg Journal
• Daily Courier-Observer