T H E ESTABLISHMENT OF BEAVER COUNTY 1856-1870
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vided the lumber, and Jonathon Crosby's finishing shop produced the planed-and-turned trim. The carpentry work, including the framing, windows, doors, pulpit area and later gallery, was done by the city's leading mechanics, Jonathon Crosby, Charles Bird, John Ashworth, and Roberts Keys. Wood shingles for the roof were made at Edward Nelson's mill. To ensure a high quality interior finish, church leaders sent to Beaver painter and grainer John Wicker and his assistant, a Mr. Schepelli, who had come from Europe with Wicker.47 Completed after several weeks of effort, the east-facing tabernacle was a monument to pioneer craftsmanship and devotion. The tall, spacious assembly room had ample windows and a balcony or gallery at the east end. In the full basement were two big rooms used for Sunday school classes, priesthood q u o r u m meetings and parties. Later Richard Maeser used the building for a church school. A bell tower with a "large, clear-toned bell" called students to class. Used for church, school, social, and civic meetings for sixty years, the beloved edifice was razed in 1931, its materials salvaged for continued use in building the West Ward Meetinghouse. It was also in 1868 that stone mason Thomas Frazer arrived in Beaver as an LDS convert and immigrant from Scotland, following seven years in Murdock's former town, Lehi. During his first two years, Frazer was kept busy doing m a s o n r y work on the Beaver Woolen Mills, Beaver Co-op Store, and other business buildings. About 1870 he found himself free to build houses, for which he used the black basalt rock found in the foothills and bench areas east of the city. The equivalent of what we now call a general contractor, he built scores of stone houses during the 1870s and 1880s, apparently employing his own designs which he modified and perfected over the years. Many of Frazer's well-built structures remain, mostly on the west side of town. Frazer's own home, a modest one-story stone building, is still extant. It typifies his style—well-cut, squared stones and carefully beaded mortar joints of uniform width, extraordinary craftsmanship, d o r m e r windows, white-stained mortar, and Greek Revival a n d Federalist style influences. Eventually, between 1872-73 Frazer served as the major contractor for Fort C a m e r o n , an enterprise that employed craftsman from all over the area. Sixteen of his stone
