Two centuries is a long time to spend outdoors, even for an iron gate.

And while the stout iron gate that opens onto the cemetery at Emmanuel Reformed Church of the United Church of Christ in Murrysville was able to weather more than 200 winters, it couldn’t prevail in a battle against a wayward truck a few years ago.

“One of our members called and asked us if we wanted to renovate the fence,” said Chris Holt, secretary for the Pittsburgh Area Artist-Blacksmiths Association, the local chapter of a group with more than 90 affiliates across the U.S. “Doing the whole fence was a little bit beyond our scope. But he showed us the gate, which had gotten twisted when the truck caught it.”

A definitive date for the establishment of “Hill’s Church,” as it was casually known back in the 19th century, is a bit of a mystery, according to local research. But an account written by the Rev. Jacob Snyder, who was Emmanuel’s pastor in 1877, states the church came into existence “perhaps about the year 1820.”

That would make the cemetery gate at least two centuries old, and with headstones dating to the 1700s, perhaps even older than that.

In addition to donating their time to fix the gate, the association fulfilled its educational mission by hosting a class on iron-straightening.

“This gate is mild steel and cast iron, not wrought, so you can bend it with one of these,” said the aptly named John Steel, president of the Pittsburgh-area association, as he held up a bending fork, a 2-foot metal bar with two cylindrical pegs at one end. It was used to gain leverage and slowly bend individual parts of the gate back into shape.

The association was able to bend several of the gate bars back into shape, but it was not entirely salvageable.

“Part of it was so deteriorated that it would be very brittle even if we were to fix it,” Holt said. “So we replaced some sections, and we were able to match it very closely to the original gate.”

Steel estimated association members spent about 16 to 20 hours on the project between straightening the usable bars, rebuilding the necessary sections, painting it and installing it, which a half-dozen members were doing on a sunny Friday morning along Hills Church Road in Murrysville.

Holt said the association’s Pittsburgh Area chapter has about 275 members. It encompasses not just Southwestern Pennsylvania but the Tri-State area, including parts of Ohio and West Virginia.

As a former art teacher at Shady Side Academy when it was still a boys-only school, Holt said she was well-prepared to hang out with a bunch of male blacksmiths when she took her first association class.

“It was really enjoyable, and everyone was very kind and passionate about blacksmithing,” she said.

On July 25, association members will be hard at work starting at 9 a.m. at the Compass Inn Museum in Laughlintown, making items that will be sold at its gift shop.

Steel, a former welder and iron worker, said he loves being part of the group.

“It was a great way for me to do something a little more creative than working on the Highmark building,” he said.

For more on the association, see PAABA.net.