We are having continued problems with internet access in our hotel in Albuquerque. The hotel claims to have wireless internet access, but the only place it seems to work is in the hotel lobby.
On Sunday, which is our final day of this adventure, we traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico for the day. Our primary stop in Santa Fe was the Loretto Chapel, where we viewed the Miraculous Staircase, which appears to have been constructed with no visible support underneath. The rest of the history of this chapel will come after we arrive back in Hickory. John Setzler is writing a research paper on that subject, which will be posted here.
The Miraculous Staircase in Loretto Chapel...
The Altar at Loretto Chapel...
Local street performer "Johnny" entertains the crowd in downtown Santa Fe while our own Chris Reidel and Dale Hamilton accompany with the tambourine and dance...
Fred Bryson and Bobbie Brannon enjoy lunch on Sunday at The Burrito Cafe in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico.We have an 800-mile journey back to Clarksville, Arkansas tomorrow morning, so we must get packed and get up for our 5:30 a.m. departure time. We won't be posting a blog entry from Clarksville, but we will make a final post for this project once we arrive back in Hickory.
The Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was commissioned in 1872 by Jean Baptiste Lamy. Lamy was the Bishop of the Santa Fe Archdiocese at this time. Originally, the Loretto Chapel was to be named “Our Lady of Light Chapel” and would be maintained by the Sisters of Loretto. The Sisters of Loretto established themselves in Santa Fe in 1853 by opening the Academy of Our Lady of Light. In a very short time, this school grew to an attendance of over 300 students. The school covered one city block and consisted of ten buildings.
Jean Baptiste Lamy had hired architect Antoine Mouly and his son from Paris to be the architect and builders for the St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe. During the 10-year construction period of this cathedral, Lamy convinced the Sisters of Loretto to take advantage of the Mouly father and son architect and construction team to design and build a chapel companion to the Academy of Our Lady of Light. The Sisters decided that the school needed a chapel and raised $30,000 on their own to begin construction of the Gothic chapel in 1873. The stones for the chapel were quarried from areas around Santa Fe. The stained glass was purchase from Paris and sent to Santa Fe via ship, paddle boat, and covered wagon. The original construction of the chapel was completed in 1878.
During the construction of the Loretto Chapel, Antoine Mouly died suddenly. Only after much of the chapel construction was complete, the builders discovered that there was no staircase available to the choir loft. The small size of the chapel did not lend itself to the construction of a standard staircase, and the Sisters of Loretto did not feel comfortable with a ladder to the loft. The construction of the staircase to the loft in Loretto Chapel creates a mystery that lives to this day, and the staircase in the Loretto Chapel is still referred to as “The Miraculous Staircase.”
Legend has it that the nuns prayed for nine consecutive days for a solution to the staircase problem in the chapel. After their nine days of prayer ended, a stranger arrived at the academy. This stranger offered to build a staircase to the loft in the chapel, but he would require total privacy in order to complete the task. The stranger locked himself in the chapel for three months with nothing but primitive tools while he built a spiral staircase. Another oddity of this staircase construction is that the carpenter is not known. As soon as the construction was complete, the carpenter vanished without a trace. Another oddity of this staircase is that it was constructed without the use of nails and there is no central support. A third oddity of this construction project is that all of the wood use to build the staircase is non-native wood, and there were no witnesses to the delivery of the wood or the actual construction of the staircase. The carpenter left the site before he could be paid for the work. The Sisters of Loretto offered a reward for the identity of the carpenter, but no one ever stepped forward or provided information leading to the identity of the stranger.
The legend of the Miraculous Staircase of Loretto Chapel lives to this day, but the chapel no longer serves as a church. The chapel does allow wedding ceremonies to be performed when those arrangements are requested.
1 comment:
Wooi, a wha dis faada. A weh yuh deh do. A caan dance yuh deh dance. Nuh badda shame yuhself. Have fun.
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