Fire in former Möller factory in Hagerstown, Maryland

Recent visits to Hagerstown spur 20-year-old recollections

With his wife Lou Anna, Randall Dyer owns and operates Randall Dyer & Associates, Inc., of Jefferson City, Tennessee, www.rdyerorgans.com. The firm specializes in the high quality construction of electric-actioned pipe organs, using slider-and-pallet chests, and in selective rebuilding of existing instruments of good manufacture. Dyer was Convention Coordinator of AIO for 17 years.

Even as Bynum Petty’s anticipated  book on the life of Mathias Peter Möller and the early years of the company he founded nears completion, what may have been the last chapter of organbuilding at 403 N. Prospect Street in Hagerstown, Maryland, was playing out during a cold week in March 2011. On January 5 of that year, as our crew was working in northern Virginia, removing an organ for rebuilding, I made a quick trip to Hagerstown to take pipes for repair at Eastern Organ Pipes. Their business has always been located in a part of the old Möller plant. Having visited it in bygone days, the church’s organist, who had played Möller organs for years, wanted to go along to visit what remained of the once-proud factory again. 

Fire

Back on the job site loading our truck the next day, I received a late-afternoon phone call from long-time friend David Bottom of Lexington, Kentucky. He didn’t even say hello. “Are you in Hagerstown, watching the fire?” His words sent cold chills down my spine because I knew immediately that he was referring to our mutual interest, the old Möller factory, the nooks and crannies of which we both had plied for years. Beyond the immediate concern for the safety of our friends there, my mind eventually turned to replacing the pipes I had left, which must surely have been consumed; after all, the last I saw them, they were in the room next to where the fire was reported to have started.

During the course of the next several days, it became apparent that the media, as is typical these days, had greatly overplayed the seriousness of the situation. An eventual phone call to Hagerstown revealed that my pipes were fine. Most of the damage had been confined to the spray booth area and the floor immediately above it, all located in a cheaply constructed wooden addition to the back of the main building. Though hampered by an inoperative sprinkler system, apparently disabled without warning at some past date, the fire department had done a heroic job. Only smoke permeated the workspace, and most of the water damage was confined to a few inches of depth in the sub-basement casting and cut-out areas.

Möller closing 

For those who may not remember, the M. P. Möller Company abruptly ceased operation on a Wednesday in April 1992. With the business no longer in family hands, the new owners had become weary of the constant injections of cash required to keep it afloat. Employees were called into the erecting room at the afternoon break, and told there was no money in the bank to meet the following day’s payroll; they were free to go home.

There had long been tension with the union. A bitter twelve-week strike in 1984 ended with the resignation of the president, Kevin Möller, grandson of the founder. Peter Möller Daniels, another grandson, followed in the president’s office. But sparring with the union continued, and on 25 July 1986, Daniels asked them to take a 75 cent per hour pay cut, and eliminate three paid holidays, this a reflection of Möller’s 69% loss of market share over the previous year. The union refused; the company cut the workweek to 32.5 hours. 

On 13 August 1986, the board abruptly placed Peter Daniels on administrative leave, and appointed the first non-family member, Ronald Ellis, as president. While Ellis made conciliatory offers to the union, and was rebuffed, Daniels made his displeasure with everything known in the local newspaper, stating that he didn’t believe Ellis and Henry Hanson, chairman of the board, were qualified to guide Möller and set quality standards.

Years of decline

But the union was only one of the problems at Möller. As the decade of the 1990s dawned, organ industry statistician Robert Ebert would continue to track a decline in overall organ industry sales; there was no question that a serious recession was at hand. 

Internal documents would later reveal a company frantically struggling to maintain the place it perceived for itself in the industry while trying to figure out a way to make a profit, something that had been elusive for a long time. In the most recent six-year period, losses had ranged from a low of $475,000 to as much as $1.7 million. Healthcare was running nearly 10% of sales.

The new owners, a consortium of businessmen with backgrounds in managing other companies, launched into an effort to bring Möller around. Meetings were held with mid-level management and shop foremen. As late as December 1991, a “Strategic Action Plan” outlined 26 areas of potential improvement, and explored ways and timelines for dealing with them in the new year. The vision, entitled “Möller Number One,” was for Möller to be “the undisputed Number One builder of pipe organs” in the world.  

Obstacles to success

The list of obstacles to success included “trying to be all things” to a very broad customer base (which included tracker organs); “poor product documentation” within the factory (resulting in rework costs when details were changed after an organ was under construction); general “resistance to change” at all levels; and conflicts between “customization and standardization” (the big organs versus the little ones).

Committees were appointed to deal with things as mundane as open pipe seams, resulting from use of green (uncured) metal; difficulty attaching reed barrels to blocks because of dirty solder; and old worn-out machinery that needed to have cutting parts adjusted and sharpened. Apparently one very serious problem was inadequate fitting in the erecting room, which was resulting in difficulties at the installation site. A suggested solution was to appoint factory installation teams that would follow the organs through final assembly right on to site completion. Major remodeling to the Prospect Street plant, or even a completely new factory, was also suggested to improve manufacturing flow.

In the sales department, new advertising initiatives were studied. Executive summaries cheered major advancements in quality, but recognized the need to cover the extra cost involved while remaining competitive. At the same time, fiascos on several high-profile projects, including St. James Church in New York City, were readily admitted to have resulted in a loss of client base. And a two-manual, 25-rank tracker organ in Texas ran $175,000 over budget!

To help bring fallow territories back into the fold, a strategy was detailed for wooing a lengthy list of formerly friendly, well-known organists and consultants. Proposed methods included luncheon invitations, visits to “show organs,” and trips to see the factory. Field representatives were encouraged to join as many AGO chapters in their territories as possible, in order to hear of new prospects. It didn’t help that Wicks was offering a special 10% discount on outstanding proposals signed before the end of 1991, and Zimmer was known to be nearly 50% under the Möller pricing—both firms were regarded as serious competition, particularly in the small organ market. 

Attempts to revive the company

Following the April dismissal in the erecting room, several attempts were made to revive the company. A letter from Paul Coughlin, chairman of the board, to contracted clients dated 12 August 1992, thanked them for their patience, and talked of progress on an employee-sponsored buyout. But employees were apparently not pleased with the idea of mortgaging their personal property to secure the necessary bank loans. Ultimately, no solutions were found; as Bruton Parish Church threatened legal action for return of a contract down payment, it appeared there would be no more work at 403 N. Prospect Street. 

Public auction

A four-day public auction, attended by an estimated 2,100 people from around the country, commenced in the world’s largest pipe organ erecting room at 9 am on Wednesday, 13 January 1993. Like the documents in the office suite, personal items—tools, calendars, apparel—left by the employees were still in place the day of the sale as if to bear evidence of their owners’ quick departure. 

The event resembled a feeding frenzy in a shark tank. Those whose agenda was to make sure organbuilding equipment would not be used again in a competitive way bid against those equally determined that it would. Tempers flared. Under-the-breath remarks were exchanged. And in spite of the terms outlined in the sales brochure, the auction company did a poor job managing dispersion of sold materials. Even bulky items, including lumber and brass, disappeared before the true buyers were able to present their paid receipts and get their trucks backed up to the door. 

Items we bought are still in use in our shop, including one of the swing-arm drills from the chest department, an adjustable-height table, which works well with that drill, and several four-wheel factory-style carts. The 900 wooden drawknobs were all used after being turned down by Jan Rowland to a style that belied their ancestry.

Another revival attempt

Much of the equipment and stock was purchased by Paul Stuck, a Chicago businessman with a vision of continuing to build organs in Hagerstown, using the available pool of talent there. Great hype was made of the fact that he bought the Möller name, files and “trade secrets,” whatever those might have been, for $50,000. 

Operating under the corporate name King of Instruments, his umbrella company was to handle sales, assembly, installation, and service. The actual work of building the parts would be farmed out on a piece basis to a group of small companies remaining in the building. These firms were also free to sell directly to the trade under their own names. 

Eastern Organ Pipes, formed by Frederick (Rick) Morrison, Alvin (Jack) Rogers, Delphin (Joe) Frushour, and Dave Keedy, was the pipe-making arm of the operation. All of the principals had worked in the Möller factory, either as pipemakers or as voicers, and they were joined by several other former Möller employees as helpers. The firm occupied three floors in the metal pipe shop area north of the erecting room and directly behind the offices and engineering department. Casting and cut-out remained in the basement of the same building. Large pipe rolling, pipe-metal planing, and the spray booth were on the former loading dock along the Pennsylvania Railroad spur that had brought in rough lumber and carried off completed organs in years past.

Within 18 months, trouble was brewing again. When Stuck failed to pay back rent totaling $20,000, building owner Vincent Groh sued. By April 1995, Stuck’s operation had crashed, and a second, though much smaller, auction was held to liquidate his bank’s holdings. This time we bought the knee-panel bending jig, but once again churches lost down payments, and organs in process were left to be finished by others. 

Post Möller

Eastern and the chest/console group, Hagerstown Organ Company, flourished in their own right. Former Möller representatives and service personnel seeking “in-style” equipment to enlarge or rebuild existing Möller organs, were frequent clients of both firms, but a following of others, including ourselves, also developed. 

At the time, we were looking for an alternate domestic pipe supplier, and welcomed a new source. Beginning almost immediately, many ranks of reed and flue pipes were purchased from Eastern and installed in our organs. They also did excellent repair of existing pipes. We developed a close working friendship with everyone there, and got quality products in return. Since our vehicles make trips up and down I-81 multiple times a year, stopping in Hagerstown for a pick up or drop off was routine. 

During our January visit, Ed had rounded out a couple of large pipes while Lana looked up something in our file. We watched Gary beat Oboe resonators around a mandrel, and Cindy was washing a new set of beautifully made Rohrflöte pipes she had just finished. 

After the fire

In the aftermath of the following day’s fire, however, enthusiasm began to wane, and the owners, all nearing or past retirement age, eventually decided to accept the insurance company’s buy-out offer. The equipment and materials of Eastern Organ Pipes were sold to the highest bidder by a Georgia salvage broker on Friday, 18 March 2011, at 12 noon. 

The winning bid was proffered by Oyster Pipe Works, of Louisville, Ohio. Fred Oyster, a former reed voicer at another firm, is well known in the industry, and in recent years has been successful in establishing his own shop. A friend and colleague for many years, we had encouraged his bid, and we gladly jumped in to help expedite removal of the contents, happy to think the tooling would still be used to make pipes. 

Beginning at 7:30 am on Tuesday, 22 March, our crew from Tennessee swept the broken glass from the parking lot, made arrangements for a portable toilet, and backed our truck up to the dock door to unload packing materials and supplies. In the darkness of the building, condemned and without heat or power, we began a clean-up of fire damage, wearing dust masks and hard hats, and using generator-powered string lights in order to see. 

By the time Fred and helpers from Ohio arrived after lunch, we had also arranged for a forklift truck to bring heavy items down from the second floor pipe-making room. What followed for the next three days was fast and intensive work in a building that was leaking rainwater and cold wind through multiple openings in walls and roof. On the third morning it was 32 degrees inside and out. 

Two pup trailers were staged by ABF Motor Freight, one in the space of the former center bay on the south side of the erecting room. This section—the first erecting room, but more recently the rough wood mill and zinc pipe area—was torn down about two years ago because of serious structural problems, but the concrete floor pad remained. Though the fork truck barely fit through the door to the outside, a milling machine, several large old drill presses, a gigantic old bandsaw, three Pexto shears of varying size, and myriad patterns, sticks, tables, miscellaneous small tools, mandrels, and voicing machines all made a quick trip down to the first floor and eventually out to the trailer. And nothing was dropped or damaged in the process.

Upon completion of work in the erecting room, the fork truck was moved to the back of the building and brought in through another tight-fitting door. It spent the next two days lifting pipe-metal plane, 10-foot Pexto power shear (more than 5,000 pounds), casting table, and two rolling machines onto the second pup trailer, which was parked immediately adjacent to the source of the fire. Several of the items had to be pulled up a makeshift ramp on machinery movers to get to the working floor level. 

A week after commencement of removal, everything was in Ohio, undergoing setup in Fred’s building where mandrels were put to immediate use; in less than a month’s time, pipe metal was being planed there. We lament the passing of Eastern Organ Pipes, while congratulating Oyster Pipe Works on their acquisition; a greatly enhanced and more efficient production capability there will be the result. 

Möller—then and now

Returning home to Tennessee, I looked through the pictures of the Möller factory in David L. Junchen’s book, The Encyclopedia of the American Theatre Organ. One is immediately taken by the organization and flow of materials through the place in its heyday. An insurance drawing of the building shows the vastness of the space, at one time totaling more than 125,000 square feet. The quantity of completed work that moved through the plant, at one time as many as 30 organs a month, is almost incomprehensible. 

Before leaving Hagerstown, I took one last trip around a decaying old building through which I will probably never walk again. That it still stands seems a minor miracle, given the broken windows, roof leaks, sagging floors and crumbling brick. Though technically “locked,” graffiti in remote areas testifies that in fact, it is quite open, and one suspects that shady people roam it at will. 

Floor after floor reveals organ parts of various descriptions, all old, many left from the first sale in 1992. Chests, pipes, and disassembled consoles are strewn throughout the space in a helter-skelter manner. In a dirt basement of the west building, tucked up under the floor joists, is a long-forgotten and very strange looking green Kinetic blower, actually two blowers on one frame, connected in the middle to the motor by a belt drive. At one time it provided wind for voicing rooms on the south side of the erecting room. Never again. 

Driving away in a truck laden with nearly 10,000 pounds of pipe mandrels, I was struck by the idea that the last chapter of active organ building at 403 N. Prospect Street had probably just closed. But until such time as the building might be completely demolished and hauled away, vestiges of M. P. Möller will remain. Somewhere in that vast space there will always be some reminder that organbuilding once took place within its walls, even if only a random screw, stuck between two planks in the floor.

Ronald Cameron Bishop obtained a job with the New York M. P. Möller crew in the fall of 1955, after observing the Möller installation crew at his family’s church that summer. He worked with the New York crew through the fall of 1957, when he joined the organ maintenance staff at Radio City Music Hall. At that time he also formed his own pipe organ service firm. He married Emma Stiffler, who had been a Rockette at the Music Hall, on September 3, 1960, and they have two sons. In 1973, John A. Schantz invited Ron to become a district representative for the Schantz Organ Company, where he remained for over 32 years. The Music Hall in-house maintenance staff was eliminated in the late 1960s. In late 1975, Raymond F. Bohr, Music Hall head organist, and John Henry Jackson, vice president and senior producer at the theater, invited Ronald Bishop to return and begin the much-needed restoration of the Grand Organ. He now serves in two emeritus positions and assists his wife in the operation of her dance studio, in addition with his organ consultation services.

At the time that I joined the Möller New York City maintenance staff in 1955, the Rev. Dr. Hugh Giles concert series at Central Presbyterian Church (Park Avenue at 64th Street) was a major factor in the city’s music scene. Its centerpiece was the superb four-manual instrument (M. P. Möller opus 8000), which had been given to the church as memorial to Reginald Lindsey Sweet by his widow. Dr. Giles had worked with Möller’s tonal designer Ernest White to achieve this remarkable installation. My immediate superiors, Arthur Brady and Larry Horn, had headed the installation crew when the instrument was delivered and often spoke of what was involved during the placement process.
The main body of Central’s organ installation is placed in a large chamber to the right of the chancel and at gallery level. It speaks through a Möller-created grille to the chancel and quite exquisite casework that faces the south gallery. The Antiphonal divisions are located in the tower to the northwest. The acoustic of the sanctuary is ideal for organ, choral work, and even the spoken word.
Mr. Brady and I were assigned to the concert schedule at Central, which consisted of tuning, moving the console to chancel center (done in the early morning the second scheduled day and quite a project), and later on standby for the performance, and then returning the console to service position the following morning. I had the very special pleasure of covering these events, as only one service person was required. A small pew section in the west gallery was selected for my use so that I could get to both the antiphonal and main organ chambers with ease in the event of cipher problems (which did not happen during my tenure, but I surely did have a wonderful musical experience).

Flor Peeters
Our first artist during the 1955 season was Flor Peeters. The console moving session also included our remaining for the organist’s rehearsal period (at least until 5:00 pm; we started work at 8:00 am in those days). Obviously the preparation time went on through the evening hours.
Mr. Brady had gone out to lunch with a friend, and I settled down in Dr. Giles’ study to consume what I had brought from home. Almost one half hour passed by, and then I heard a voice calling from the sanctuary. It was Flor Peeters. In his cadenced English he said, “Ronald you vil play zee organ for me, pleeze.” Now, on a good day my skills of improvisation might just get by—maybe (just ask John Weaver). Here was this eighteen-year-old being asked by a world class artist to “play zee organ pleeze.” I advised the gentleman of what he might expect, and he indicated that I was to play through his piston settings as he called them out from various locations in the church. The writer is certain that this great man soon realized why I had entered the organ maintenance field (Mother did pay—or my godmother did pay for six years of piano, but it never did “take”).
The first composition on his program was Peeters’ own Aria. My appreciation of this work remains to this day. In preparation for our wedding in 1960, I asked my Emma Elizabeth to play it for her pleasure, and we both felt it should be the first composition to be played in the service prelude. Needless to say, Flor Peeters’ recital was played to a full house that autumn evening and was very well received.

André Marchal
The next guest on Dr. Giles’ schedule was the blind organist André Marchal. Brady and I got everything ready, and I was amazed after just about a half hour with his associate as a guide, Marchal was quite familiar with the four-manual console and most every stop and coupler location. He asked us just how the capture combination system functioned and grasped what this equipment was all about in a matter of minutes, including all piston and reversible locations.
This gifted artist played an impeccable program at his evening performance—again to a packed church. I remember being so impressed with his gift for registration and keyboard ability. A number of encores were indeed in order that night, as they had been for Flor Peeters.

Fernando Germani
The schedule continued with the very wonderful and quite charming Fernando Germani. It was a joy to be in his company. (Later I had the pleasure of hearing Germani play the complete works of Bach in a series at St. Thomas Church.) Mr. Germani’s rehearsal went on without incident. He was at one with this superb Möller creation and enjoyed himself very much during his preparation time.
During the evening’s program that joy continued with a wonderful performance of Dupré’s Variations sur en Noël. At its conclusion, a well-deserved ovation took place, which Germani turned to acknowledge, pushing the general cancel in the process, not realizing that the Sforzando did not cancel on this particular combination action system.
The next selection was one of my very favorites, Vierne’s Clair de Lune, and you guessed it: Germani prepared his registration not giving any notice to that RED indicator light on the nameboard. I was trying to send mental signals from my seat in the gallery, but he placed his hand on the manuals with a full organ result. Of course, this most gracious man stopped at once, turning on the bench and saying to the audience, “Excusa.”
With the full-organ control reversed, a most delicate and beautiful performance of this work followed. Although many consoles featured the automatic Sforzando cancel at that point in time, many Möllers did not. When Mr. Brady and I returned to set the console back in service position, I was provided with a bottle of red nail polish and told to coat the Sforzando toe piston with it.

Jean Langlais
If I recall correctly, Jean Langlais next visited with opus 8000. This was my first introduction to this wonderful artist and his amazing musical works. A few years later, his then student (later wife) Marie Louise stayed with Emmie and me twice at our home in Maplewood, New Jersey, during her concert tours of the United States. Along with our two sons we enjoyed these visits with this lovely lady. Her recital at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark was a truly grand event.
After their marriage, Prof. Langlais was engaged to play a recital for Lester Berenbroick during his ministry of music in the Presbyterian Church at Madison, New Jersey. At Lester’s request, I assisted my foreman in the organ’s tuning. Langlais was involved in a press conference at the rear of the sanctuary. Hearing us in the chancel, he finished his comments and came to the console. He wanted to be sure to convey his thanks to Emmie and me for taking such good care of his Marie during her past visits to this country. We ended up chatting for about a half hour. As he left, I was tuning the top octave of the 8′ Clarinet, just arriving at top C. The good professor shouted from the aisle “do not bother with that *@&+ note—I do not use it in MY music.”

Hugh Giles
At this point, I believe some thoughts on Dr. Giles might be appropriate. To my knowledge, he was the first ordained Presbyterian clergyman to be appointed as full-time minister of music. He was also called as the associate pastor of Central Church at that time. Hugh had a remarkable and engaging personality, and in addition to his superb musical talent was a gifted preacher as well.
In addition to the concert series (which was second to none in talent and presentation), Dr. Giles directed a music ministry, which included professional singers. He was also responsible for the organ’s care and had a wonderful working relationship with the Möller technical staff. All of us on the New York/metro crew enjoyed working with and for Hugh at Central.
The inspired creation of opus 8000 was a joint effort between Ernest White and Hugh Giles. It was the Möller showpiece in New York City for a number of years and was a major feature of that decade’s AGO national convention. To Messrs. White and Giles’ credit, the scaling of this instrument was perfect for that beautiful sanctuary on Park Avenue. The edifice was first built as the Park Avenue Baptist Church, but was deemed not large enough for the preaching gifts of Harry Emerson Fosdick. The gracious Riverside Church was constructed to fill this need, and the original building became Central Presbyterian.

Ernest White
Just a word about Ernest White. During one of my first weeks working for Möller, I was sent to work with Mr. White at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin. The company maintained the beautiful Aeolian-Skinner in the church, the choir room Möller, and the Aeolian-Skinner in the organist’s study. I tuned for Ernest (he held keys) and sometimes he went into the instruments to make adjustments himself. During lunch I would sit in the organ loft or choir room while he played Franck. What an experience. This gentleman taught me a great deal about the art of organ building. His associate, Edward Linzel, also became a good friend. I still have the recordings made by these two men at St. Mary’s.

West Point
Theodore Gyler Speers was the senior pastor of Central Church and gave his full gracious support to his associate and the ministry of music. Dr. Speers later moved on to that glorious chapel above the plain at West Point, New York. The Möller New York/metro crew had been involved with the installation of the superb console at the Military Academy along with earlier portions of this grand instrument. In fact, Arthur Brady installed the original Möller organ and did extensive tonal regulation work for Frederick Mayer in the cadet chapel.
In 1929 Mr. Brady had continued his association with Mr. Mayer when he was called upon to install a smaller version of the West Point design (49 ranks) for the Church of the Holy Communion at South Orange, New Jersey. Here
M. P. Möller built another gem, which was given to the parish by the Vanston family. During my time working with Dr. Giles, he suggested that I visit West Point, and I then had the opportunity to meet Jack Davis, the chapel organist and choirmaster. What a wonderful visit that was, and in recent years I had the pleasure to work with Dr. Davis in the design and installation of the Schantz organ at the Reformed Church in Poughkeepsie, New York, where he continues his work in a truly dedicated and loving manner as has always been this fine gentleman’s custom.

Jeanne Demessieux
A major happening in the concert series that year (and believe me, all the performances were quite special) was the appearance of Jeanne Demessieux. Her performance was to include the Ad Nos along with many other audience favorites. I recall that the New York press had done a fine job of pre-recital coverage.
Knowing of my interest in the instrument and the artists who played it, Dr. Giles had arranged for a private meeting for Ms. Demessieux and myself in his study between her preparation time and the performance. We had a lovely visit, with Hugh the ever-proper host. This lady did indeed play the organ in those high-high-heels (and never missed a note). She was just a lovely person and this showed in her music. What a night—encore and after encore followed (I cannot recall how many), with a mystical silence as the audience filed out.

Möller New York City/metro crew
While all these wonderful happenings did so much for the New York City concert season, I must not lose sight of the many projects the M. P. Möller metro service crew was attending to. Aside from the contracted maintenance of some 600-plus Möller instruments, the eight of us were quite often called upon to assist the Hagerstown road crew installation folks.
The metro crew was a group of characters unto itself, headed by our senior members. Larry Horn spoke with the right side of his mouth lowered for a very dramatic accent (and related visual effect). Larry’s partner at the directorial level was one Rudy Lung (that is right, LUNG), who spoke with the left side of his mouth lowered (also a most interesting effect when those two stood side by side on the job site). Larry and Rudy were almost always teamed together, with the resulting comedy (for lack of anything else to call it) vocal plus visual effects. I should note here that this “team” had a favorite word that contained four letters and began with the letter “F.” It was always an experience to go into a church with them and hold one’s breath during any initial discussions with the assembled clergy and members on hand. It was amazing how they “cleaned up their act” until out of earshot (at least we all hoped so).
Then there was one George Siska, a very kindly Hungarian gentleman who stated constantly that he was in reality a “Woycer” and did not belong on a regular pipe organ maintenance crew. Many times I was paired with George (when Mr. Brady was on a releathering job or whatever) as it seemed that our boss (one John Byer) thought that I was patient and understanding and would put up with Mr. Siska’s constant complaining about not being assigned to the appropriate tasks befitting his talents.
There were indeed very bright lights in this group, including of course Mr. Brady, who was a mechanical wonder person and tuner, with a special ability for tonal regulation. Ernest Lucas is one of the best people ever to be in the pipe organ field, along with his brother Harold, who left our merry band to work with Aeolian-Skinner in Chicago. George Eisell had joined our group from Aeolian-Skinner and was expert in just about anything. George had recently installed the five-manual console with its some seventeen remote combination machines for Virgil Fox at the Riverside Church. George told me of his wonderful experience in working with Virgil, as did all who had the special opportunity of working for and with this great man. I know full well that Dr. Fox was well respected by all of us in the industry and that feeling was returned tenfold.
For many years M. P. Möller kept offices in a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, which included a pipe organ that was later moved to a church in Harlem. In addition, the Grand Ballroom contained a very large twin-consoled four-manual installation. (One console was of the English drawknob type and the other a theatre-style unit—both with plug-in connectors.)
As time passed, the Möller office relocated to Yonkers, New York. The Grand Ballroom instrument was placed in storage and, after a factory rebuild plus new console, sold to the State University of New Jersey for their Montclair campus. They had built a quite lovely auditorium with chambers at stage right and left, all ready for the organ’s installation. The new four-manual console was placed in the orchestra pit at stage right.
Our entire group was assigned to assist that factory installation crew for this project. This led to a very interesting situation with Larry Horn (mouth listing to the right) having so-called equal “bossing” responsibility with “Wild” Bill Slaughterback (loud mouth—period) of the Hagerstown group.
The university campus is set on a hillside in northern New Jersey, with a haunting view of New York City to the east. As we began our installation process, major construction was in progress all over the area. The Möller trucks arrived so our gang could unload, with everything placed in and around the large scene dock entrance for the stage complex. We got everything placed for proper installation sequence, including the large two-stage wooden-cased organ blower (original to the instrument).
Within the hour it was discovered that this large wind machine belonged two floors down. I should mention that the building sat on the gentle slope of the hillside. This is when the fun started. “Wild” Bill and Larry decided to appropriate a front end loader that was just sitting there at idle in the parking lot.
The gentlemen both decided they knew how to operate this unit, but before all hell broke loose they were “observed” by the rightful operator. Then money matters for the use of the machine ensued. This involved much loud talking (Larry trying to outdo Wild Bill to NO avail)—thank goodness for the coffee truck (where the rest of us fled) that was on site. At last the money matters were settled, and the sight of our fearless leaders riding in the bucket of the loader was a vision to behold. They got the loader up to the scene dock, and we started to shove the blower toward it (Möller did not provide dollies in those days). At last the machine fell into the bucket and began its trip to the lower-level blower room with Bill and Larry yelling at each other—I never did figure out about what—for the duration of the trip, brief as it was.
Once the auditorium installation was completed and the tonal regulation done, the university arranged to have Virgil Fox dedicate the instrument. It was always a pleasure for us to work with and for Dr. Fox, a true professional and a really nice person. Mr. Brady and I were to be on call should the organ require any last-minute attention. Well, Dr. Fox got into one of his beautiful full registrations and we soon discovered that nobody had thought to rebuild the curtain valve in the blower static air reservoir. Obviously the organ just stopped in its tracks. We soon got the problem repaired, and one beautiful recital played to another full house was the end result. I am certain that Virgil had played the organ more than once in its original location and he enjoyed very much making “friends” with it once again.

Further adventures
Looking back, I think that all this fun and games stuff began with the New York/metro crew itself when we did one of our first solo installations in a very conservative college up in South Lancaster, Massachusetts. It was a small three-manual in a chapel/auditorium-type setup, with chambers to the left and right of the platform area. Larry was in charge, with Rudy and his ever-available comments and “assistance.” Larry had placed the organ installation drawings on a table in the middle of the room, laid out for all to see and work from at his direction. We started hauling parts up ladders to the chambers as ordered and soon found out that nothing, I mean nothing, fit. Larry insisted he was giving the right directions and ordered baseboards and other materials that he thought in the way, removed from the organ loft locations. Eighteen-year-old me suggested that HE look at the drawings again and was TOLD IN NO FEW WORDS TO MIND MY OWN BUSINESS AND THAT I WAS JUST A HELPER (plus a few other choice words). This all went on until it was time to go to lunch; there was a wonderful diner down the road and we all wanted to get there FAST. By this time, organ parts were all over the place, jammed into the chamber and what not. Progress was non-existent.
I made certain I was the last one out of the room to head for that diner. I had hours ago figured out that Larry had laid out the prints wrong, and he was trying to have us place the Swell organ in the Great/Choir chamber and vice versa. Mr. Bullhead would not think any other way. (Bright me reset the prints as I went out the door.)
When we all returned from lunch, Larry said, “oh, here is the problem”: THEY had laid the drawings wrong and he had figured out THEIR mistake. Once we had switched everything around (no easy job) all was now right with the world. What brain power and an ego this man had. Please remember I was just a helper. In the end the organ turned out to be a very fine little three-manual, and the client was well pleased.
Again in retrospect, maybe this is why the boss always sent Mr. Brady and me to assist Dr. Giles with the concert series needs. (Larry and Rudy had worked the crew on Opus 8000 and done an excellent installation, but Hugh did say to us one day that he recalled them as an “interesting” pair to say the very least.)
Returning to the university campus in New Jersey, the blower was, at last, put in place and we all got to work on the actual chamber(s) installation process. After some back and forth, it was decided that the factory crew would attend to the stage left chamber and we New York/metro boys could take care of the stage right location. Please remember after all the fun up in New England and the give and take on this New Jersey project and despite all the carrying on discussed above, the Möller company always did excellent work, and I very much enjoyed my time and learning experience with this fine firm.
Our combined crew soon completed the transplant of the Waldorf instrument, and Larry stayed on to assist John Schiegh, Möller’s head tonal finisher, as they spent several weeks going through the organ pipe by pipe.

John Schiegh and John Schantz
The two tonal finishers I worked with were both named John—the aforementioned Mr. Schiegh and for thirty-two-plus years beginning in 1973, John A. Schantz. Although our friend from Möller did not know how to play the instrument too well, he had a knack for getting a wonderful balance of tone. On the other hand, John Schantz was and is a superb organist and knew only too well how he could obtain exquisite musical results from the organs he designed and voiced.
Over the years, John A. Schantz has been a valued mentor, teaching me many valued lessons about the instrument we both admire so much. I can recall during a backstage visit at Radio City Music Hall in 1958, both Dr. William Barnes and Dr. Charles Courboin telling me of the great Schantz organ at the Cathedral (now Basilica) of the Sacred Heart in Newark, New Jersey, and John’s wonderful work there. Little did I know that about a decade or so later Mr. Schantz would ask me to represent his firm.

Life after Möller
I left M. P. Möller (and sadly Mr. Brady) to attend college in the fall of 1957. Later that year, I was hired as associate organ technician for Radio City Music Hall, upon the recommendation of another Möller employee who was working the night shift there. I still hold an Emeritus title at the theater to this day. Soon after joining the Music Hall staff, I met a beautiful young lady named Emma Stiffler, who was then a Rockette. We were married in September of 1960 and through God’s blessing share a love that grows deeper as each day goes by.
About eight years after our marriage, I met up with opus 8000 once again when Richard Westenburg asked me to take charge of the instrument as it continued to play an important role in his Musica Sacra series and the ministry of music at Central Church. The late William Whitehead and the recently retired John Weaver shared the continuo work with Dick conducting the chorus, and in the course of the season Dr. Weaver played a stunning performance of the Poulenc organ concerto under Richard’s baton to a well-deserved standing ovation. Opus 8000 really did its thing that evening. Around 1978, I again had the honor of hearing this work on the Schantz organ at Abyssinian Baptist Church, with the late Leon Thompson conducting members of the New York Philharmonic, of which he was an associate conductor—once again a standing ovation from a full congregation, 2,300 in this beautiful setting. I had assisted John A. Schantz in the design, installation, and tonal finishing of this five-manual instrument, which contained some pipework from the previous installation there that preceded opus 8000 by a few years. Frederick Swann had served the congregation as consultant, and the organ’s opening performance included the full New York Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta conducting, with the late Leonard Raver at the console and Leontyne Price a vocal soloist. New York City concertgoers did indeed enjoy the wonderful concert seasons.
Emmie and I became patrons of Dr. Westenburg’s program at Central, which kept us in contact with our four-manual Möller friend for several more years. That series was music-making of the highest order and later moved to Avery Fisher Hall. In addition, Dick went on to become music director of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church.

Dan Locklair
In the summer of 1976, Emmie, our sons, and I took a summer home on Hart Lake (Pennsylvania), in the mountains just below Binghamton, New York. Dan Locklair had contracted with Schantz (with me as project director) to do extensive tonal work and additions to the fine Link organ at First Presbyterian Church, Binghamton. My staff and I had a wonderful time working with and for Dan, and we have been dear friends ever since. Later on, Dr. Locklair composed an anthem in our honor entitled A Christmas Carol. Dan and his lovely wife Paula are doing wonderful things in the Winston-Salem, North Carolina area. John A. Schantz joined me in doing the tonal finishing of the Binghamton organ. One of the major donors came to me and said it is just perfect and thank you and Mr. Schantz.

New York City installations
In thinking about New York City’s two major concert halls, one does wonder about the lack of organs in both of them. When I first started at the Music Hall, my boss, Louis Ferrara, took me up to Carnegie Hall to see the Kilgen installation there. He would be asked to tune it from time to time, and our friend Claire Coci was organist of the Philharmonic, which resided there back then. I later serviced the instrument in Claire’s home until her unfortunate passing. The late and quite wonderful George William Volkel also played the Kilgen for the Bell Telephone Hour, which was broadcast in its radio days from the hall. George even played a half-hour recital for the audience prior to the program going on the air “live.” Although buried, that instrument could make itself known but was later removed for whatever reason.
At the time Avery Fisher (then Philharmonic) Hall was completed, Louis, Ray Bohr (Music Hall organist) and I were invited by the Aeolian-Skinner foreman to visit the organ installation, which had just been rough tuned. The stage crew brought that very beautiful ebony console to the stage on its elevator. Ray and Lou went out into the house and asked me to PLAY. Now we already know of my playing skills (?!), but that organ and its gorgeous sound made even me sound decent. In my opinion, it was just a sin to remove that instrument. At the time of the Abyssinian Baptist Church installation and through Dr. Leon Thompson’s kindness, Zubin Mehta asked me to come to the hall and see what could be done relative to a possible new Schantz installation. During my visit, I was told by the stage manager that if the sliding steel door (à la the Kennedy Center Aeolian-Skinner installation in Washington, DC) had been installed, the original organ would still be there. The powers that be would not, however, spend the money for that installation. The organ chamber was still there, walled over, and used for storage. The “acoustical” person granted such a limited space for any replacement organ that the project was just impossible to consider. Believe me, John Schantz and I spent a great deal of time discussing the matter to no avail.
Despite this lacking, the area churches really provided some great concert venues, thinking of Dr. Giles and opus 8000 and our wonderful friends at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, who have continued to invite the New York Philharmonic to appear with their-five manual instrument.
Even the Grand Organ at Radio City Music Hall has taken its concert turn under the batons of Carmine Coppola and James Levine, with Frederick Swann and Anthony Newman as guest organ soloists. Even back in the presentation days, the great Raymond Paige conducted the Music Hall Symphony Orchestra in the Bach Festival Overture, with Richard Leibert at the console. The superb arrangement for this presentation was made by Rayburn Wright. This format was further developed with the Richard Rodgers Overture, again with Mr. Leibert as featured artist. Ray Bohr played all the regular organ intermissions on the opposite console. In later years, Robert MacDonald not only played the opening for Liberace’s show, but also joined the orchestra for the second act overture to the music of J. S. Bach. Needless to say, Robert and the organ were well received by all concerned.
A few years before his death, Virgil Fox called me to discuss a magazine article we were preparing on the Music Hall Grand Organ, its various uses and upkeep. After about ten minutes’ discussion of the article’s material, we spent another hour going over the planning of an organ program Dr. Fox and I were working on for a proposed New York appearance at Radio City Music Hall. He wanted to do the first portion of his program on the stage right console, then move to his Allen touring organ, which would be placed stage center, making full use of the elevators and turntable equipment. The light show would have been included and at one point he would move to the stage left console for another portion of the program. The finale section and any encores (Perpetual Motion for certain) would be played on the touring organ, and we got to wondering if the cabling on it would allow Dr. Fox to move down stage out onto the stage-level orchestra pit elevator so that his pedal work could be spotlighted to the greatest advantage. It is indeed unfortunate that this wonderful man never got to perform this program. I am certain that he would have sold out the vast theater, and many standing ovations would have taken place that evening.
It is obvious that the instrument we all care about has been featured in concert venues by many talented people. Broadway history alone tells me that Firmin Swinnen did a pedal solo four times a day at the Rivoli Theater with his footwork spotlighted from on high as he played The Flight of the Bumble Bee.
It was the happenings that I have known and surely my discussion with Dr. Fox that led me and my son Richard to include plug-in connectors and traveling cable materials when we rebuilt both Music Hall consoles. They can now remain in their normal alcove settings or be placed anywhere on the stage, turntable, or orchestra pit. Dr. Fox would have loved the possibilities. When Mr. Swann, Mr. Coppola and the American Symphony concluded their program, with the orchestra at stage level bathed in the appropriate light and the organist and console spotlighted in white, there was of course a standing ovation and the magic had happened once again.
With the many recent concert hall organs now installed and being planned, I know that magic will happen again. In a way, Dr. Giles helped it all get started again after World War II. The music ministry at Abyssinian has helped to continue the adventure along with the late Richard Westenburg’s ongoing contributions. Let us all continue to enjoy, support, and celebrate such ventures.

John Bishop is executive director of the Organ Clearing House.

The times they are a-changin’
When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time in churches. We lived in a suburb of Boston that had a large Episcopal parish (my father was the rector), two Congregational churches, Methodist, Baptist, Unitarian, Christian Science, and three Roman Catholic. (There aren’t that many Presbyterian churches in the Boston area.) All of them but two of the Catholic churches had pipe organs, and as an ecumenical kid and a young organist to boot, I played on most of the organs. I had a series of regular jobs playing for churches there, and I remember well that it was easy to come and go from the buildings. All of them had regular staffs and office hours. I guess I took for that for granted. In neighboring towns in each direction the situation was the same—a gaggle of big church buildings, each with a pipe organ.
That was the 1960s and 1970s and the organbuilding renaissance was in full swing in New England. Fisk, Noack, Andover, Casavant, Bozeman, and several European firms were building new organs in churches all around the area. Seems we were attending dedication recitals every few months. But the handwriting was on the wall. Aeolian-Skinner was breathing its last, and I remember clearly when the rumors started to fly that that venerable firm was closing. I was sixteen and was more than a little self-righteous when I spread the news to colleague organists before a recital at the First Congregational Church, ironically the new home of a three-manual Fisk organ (Opus 50) that had just replaced a Skinner. That church was two blocks from our house and was where I had my lessons and did most of my practicing.
In the 1970s I went to school at Oberlin, where I started working part-time for John Leek, the school’s organ technician, who did lots of organ service work on the side. Later he started his own business, now operated by his son James. Together we blasted all over Ohio and western Pennsylvania and I remember all the churches had at least a secretary and a sexton on duty. The secretary knew everyone in the parish and could anticipate what would happen next, and the sexton scrubbed and polished five days a week and was on hand on Sunday mornings making the coffee and being sure that all the light bulbs were working. You could count on the sexton to have the heat on just right in time for the organ tuning, and as we worked he was in the chancel several times, almost a nuisance, making sure we knew there was coffee in the office.
It’s different today. Many of those parishes I knew as a teenager have dwindled, 75 or 80 people spread out across 600-seat sanctuaries that were once full. Foundation plantings are overgrown, gutters and downspouts swing free, the bell can’t be rung because it’s off its rocker, the Echo division has been shut down because the roof leaked, and the secretary is in between nine and eleven, three days a week. Sexton? Forget it. A cleaning service comes in once a week, but the tile floor in Fellowship Hall never gets polished. Motors and pumps are never lubricated, heaps of ancient pageant costumes are shrouded with spider webs, and there’s an almost ghostly sense of yesterday’s glory.
And I almost forgot—the last three organists haven’t used the pedals.

The good old days
In recent weeks I’ve had two telling experiences with these “former glory” parishes in my area: one that cancelled the service contract I’ve had for 25 years, saying they don’t use the organ any more, and another where the insurance settlement for water damage to the organ was used for something else. I’ve been reflecting on what it must have been like in the twenties when all those buildings were new and all the pews were full. Those were the days when American organbuilders were producing 2,000 organs a year. Most of the venerable firms that contributed to that staggering output are gone. This is off the top of my head, but it’s a fair guess based on experience that the lofty club of 20th-century 20-organs-a-year firms included Skinner, Aeolian-Skinner, Hook & Hastings, Kimball, Kilgen, Schantz, Reuter, Wicks, and Austin. Don’t mention Möller with dozens of hundred-organ years, and even many organ-a-day years. Unbelievable.
And by the way, at least two of the most prolific American organbuilders were mostly in the secular world—Wurlitzer built thousands of organs for movie theaters and all sorts of other venues, and Aeolian built more than a thousand instruments for the homes of the rich and famous. Frank Woolworth, the Five & Dime king, had the first residence organ to include a full-length 32-foot Open Wood Diapason. You really have to stop and think just what that means. The biggest twelve pipes of that stop would fill half a modern semi-trailer. Big house. And by the way, it was his country house. He also had a big Aeolian in his city house at 990 Fifth Avenue, across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nice address. In an age when there was no central air conditioning, no heated swimming pools, no surround-sound home movie theaters, Mr. Woolworth had a 30-horsepower organ blower in his basement.
I don’t know whether the American organ industry has had any 100-organ years in my lifetime. Probably, because Möller lasted into the 1990s, but I think you get the point. It’s less than that now.

The coal miner’s heritage
Yesterday I visited a Roman Catholic parish in central Pennsylvania that is offering an organ for sale, built by M. P. Möller in the nineteen-teens. It has 26 stops on two manuals. There’s a 16-foot Open Wood in the Pedal, a lovely 16-foot metal Diapason on the Great, and four reeds. I would have expected a dull and heavy sound, but the organbuilder who renovated the instrument about eight years ago described the organ as having a brilliant and exciting tonal character, enhanced by the spacious acoustics of its large and vertical Gothic building. I might not have bothered to visit if he hadn’t spoken so passionately about what a beautiful organ it is. Let’s face it, there are plenty of lukewarm Möller organs on the market.
It’s a coal-mining town—there are lots of coal towns in that area. It was a family-owned mine with as many as 20,000 employees. The ruling family had built housing, schools, a hospital, and many church buildings. Trouble is, the mine stopped operating 50 years ago. There’s a factory that builds high-end stoves, but it’s about to close. The only remaining business of any size is a meat-packing firm that employs around a hundred people. The junior high and high school have closed and are boarded up—the kids are bused nine miles to the next town. Twenty-two hundred people live there, and there’s not much for them to do. The movie theater is in the same town as the schools. A shopping mall ten miles away stripped downtown of all its businesses. And the jobs? A lot of them must be further away than that.
My host was the priest of the Catholic parish. He drove me around town, telling me the local lore and history. He said the owners of the mine were Episcopalians. We drove past their house and saw that “their church” was next door. Though the congregation had always been small, the Episcopal church was exquisite. We didn’t go in, but he told me that all the windows are by Tiffany. And although there are fewer than ten parishioners now, the place is funded in perpetuity, and I’d guess the building had been painted within the last year. The only two people who are buried on church grounds in the town are the mine owner and his wife. The company had provided land for six cemeteries. No schools, no jobs, six cemeteries.
There was one small and exclusive Episcopal church in town, but there had been four bustling Roman Catholic parishes: one Slovak (St. John Nepomucene), one Polish (St. Casimir), one Irish (St. Anne’s), and one Italian (St. Anthony’s). Because they all were founded by and for first-generation immigrants in the early 20th century, each had a distinct cultural and ethnic character. Four years ago, the diocese directed that the parishes should merge. Oof. Did you hear that? Four years ago. Remember I said the organ had been renovated eight years ago? That cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. My visit had started at the rectory where the priest lives. When we went outside to get in his car for our tour, he introduced me to his neighbor across the street who told me he remembered when they “came around collecting for the organ project. So much money and then they close the place.”
A significant part of the priest’s job is to divest the merged parish of redundant properties. As we drove he pointed out the recently sold vacant lot where the first building of the Irish parish had been, decrepit rectories, and crumbling church and school buildings.
The building where the organ is (by the way, it’s the Slovak one) stands in a residential neighborhood on a side street that slopes gently up from south to north. That means the morning sun had shone through the St. Cecilia window every day baking the back of the organ until the organbuilder who renovated it recommended that the window be closed. The priest asked if that had been necessary and I replied that since people started building organs in churches there have been conflicts between organs and windows. It’s both a shame to bake the organ and to lose the window.
I was impressed and moved by the relationship this priest has with his community. It seemed as though each time we turned onto a different street he beeped and waved to someone, sometimes calling out the window. We ate lunch in a pizza shop where he was obviously well known, well loved, and very comfortable. A troop of motorcycles thundered by, inspiring a whole series of hoots back and forth through the open door as neighbors (they must have been parishioners) expressed their reactions. I suggested maybe they were looking for the Catholic church. After all, it was Saturday and there would be a Mass in a couple hours.

Let’s get together and be all right
Funny to quote Bob Marley when discussing the Poles, the Slovaks, the Italians, and the Irish. They’re all Roman Catholics (the last four I mean), but they were surely not ready to be one parish. St. Anne’s had built a new building in the sixties. Because it was in the best condition, it would be retained. But because it was built in the sixties, it was not the most lovely. Skylights were popular then, so the ridge of the cruciform roof is glass. There’s no air-conditioning, so it’s terribly hot inside whenever the sun shines. There’s dingy industrial carpet, tacky ceiling fans, and straight, plain pews with crumbling varnish. Imagine a life-long parishioner of St. John’s (that’s the Slovak parish) leaving the arched Gothic ceilings, gorgeous windows, colorful statues, and renovated pipe organ and going to Mass the next Sunday amidst that sixties kitsch.
I asked the priest how in the world you preside over the forced and unwanted union of such diverse ethnic and cultural communities. There was plenty of anger, and lots of people left the church altogether. Most of them grudgingly made the adjustment, but it wasn’t easy. My host had been a seminary student just after the Second Vatican Council, and told me how as a young priest he had been involved in the removal of statuary from church buildings as part of that “new time.” But as he started his ministry in this coal town, he found himself moving statues and icons from the other three buildings to adorn the otherwise blank slate of St. Anne’s building, itself a product of the austerity of the post-Vatican II Catholic Church. They moved memorial plaques, a tabernacle, the Stations of the Cross, a pulpit, and a heavy “priestly” chair, among many other things.
When I say moving statues, I mean personally moving statues. He’d get together a couple guys and they’d load these things into station wagons and pickup trucks. The Sunday after they moved the life-size statue of St. Anthony into the narthex, an elderly Italian woman came home from the 7:30 Mass and starting making lasagna in celebration of the appearance of “her” saint. Her middle-aged daughter called the priest to share the family’s delight.
They even tried to achieve parity by moving the same number of things from each building, a formula that only works if you count “The Stations” as one! Now I’ve got to admit, this is a mighty various collection of stuff. There’s no artistic or stylistic connection in the collection. It looks a little like a saintly yard sale. But while I doubt it calmed all the storms and salved all the wounds, it was a great thought and it obviously means a lot to this diminished and altered community.

What in the world is next for our world?
I left this town and this experience for the three-hour drive to Manhattan to continue work on our project there. Three became four as I realized I was not the only guy who thought of driving through the Lincoln Tunnel on a sunny Saturday afternoon, and I had plenty of time to reflect on my day. I had left home that morning at the militaresque oh-dark-hundred to drive 400 miles to see a 90-year-old Möller. Who would have thought? I found a cheerful instrument beautifully renovated, but suffering at the hands of four years of unheated neglect. I lifted a façade pipe and put a photocopied psalm between toe and toe-hole to silence a cipher. The pedal contacts were full of dust and other stuff causing so many ciphers that I didn’t play the pedals at all. Drawing a pedal knob was enough to show the weight and presence of the impressive bass stops. I played for 20 minutes to get the hang of it, figured out a few tricks to navigate around ciphers, and made a ten-minute recording. When I went downstairs, there was a group of former parishioners standing in the street with the priest. They had come when they heard the organ through the open door, the first time it had been played in three years.
The Gothic-inspired case is made of quarter-sawn oak, with lots of beautiful carved and formed details. The drawknob console is comfortable and well appointed. It’s nestled in an alcove of the case. The player sits under the impost and façade, looking down the aisle to the altar. There are heaps of white plaster dust on the pews. There are empty pedestals from which the saints migrated across town. Wrought-iron votive-candle stands are heaped in the narthex. The choir loft has pews to accommodate at least 50 singers. There is still a tray of paper clips, a basket of sharp pencils, a stack of photocopied psalms now one fewer, and a glass canister of Hall’s and Ricolas. But there are no people.
You can sense the decades of rites of liturgy and rites of passage, all the celebrations, sounds, smells, and sights of a century of worship in a vibrant community. One can hardly grasp the number of First Communions with pretty little girls in frilly white dresses, weddings, and funerals, to say nothing of tens of thousands of Masses. There are 5,000 weekends in a century. I bet it’s an understatement to say that there were at least five Masses a week for many years, 20 in the Glory Days. All that’s left is an organ that needs a new home. It’s got a lot of miles on it. Good care. No rust. Only driven by a little old lady on Sundays . . . and Saturdays, and Mondays . . . Take a look at <A HREF="http://www.organclearinghouse.com">www.organclearinghouse.com</A&gt;.
And to you all, my colleagues and friends in the world of the pipe organ, we have a special art that needs special care in this particular and transitory moment. 

Key for the cover illustration
1. Original factory building, 158 Woodland Street. Occupied from 1899–1937.
2. Opus 2, Sweetest Heart of Mary Church, Detroit, 2 manuals, 20 stops. Still in regular service.
3. Opus 500, Panama-Pacific Exhibition, San Francisco, 4 manuals, 121 stops. Damaged in a 1989 earthquake, it remains in storage awaiting completion of restoration and installation.
4. Opus 2536, Trinity College Chapel, Hartford, 3 manuals, 62 stops.
5. Opus 2719, Our Lady of Czestochowa, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, 4 manuals, 65 stops.
6. Opus 453, The Organ Pavilion, Balboa Park, San Diego, 4 manuals, 62 stops.
7. Opus 323, City Hall Auditorium, Portland, Maine, 5 manuals, 124 stops.
8. Opus 2768, St. Mary’s College, Moraga, California, 4 manuals, 68 stops.
9. Opus 2782, Fountain Street Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 4 manuals, 139 stops.
10. The “new” factory building (1937), as expanded several times.
Center: The Austin Universal Airchest logo, including the crest with the motto: Scientia Artem Adjuvat. The motto and crest are said to have been the design of former Austin employee Robert Hope-Jones.
Background: The background is a blueprint, Opus 2786, Assumption Church, Westport, Connecticut.

The first Austin milestone:

1893—the first instrument

The Austin story begins like so many tales of European emigration. It was in the year 1889 that young John T. Austin sailed for the shores of the new world with a man he met who was visiting England (the Austin family native soil) and was returning to California. The Austin family was considerably well off: Jonathan Austin (the father) was a “gentleman farmer,” whose hobby was tinkering with organs and organbuilding. During the voyage, all of John’s money was liberated from his person before arriving in New York, presumably the result of the kindness of his traveling companion!

Penniless, he used his extraordinary wits to find his way to Michigan, and was immediately hired by the Farrand & Votey firm in Detroit. In a few years’ time, he had become plant superintendent, and in his free time he developed a concept for a new type of windchest. After building and servicing bar and slider (tracker organ) windchests, and certainly seeing many of the new electro-pneumatic actions coming on the scene, he was convinced that there must be a better way. The folks at Farrand & Votey were not interested, so in 1893 he built and sold a new organ that he built at the Clough & Warren (reed organ) plant.

His concept was innovative, because you could simply walk right into the windchest (he called it an airbox) and service the complete mechanism. Inside the airbox of many of these early instruments were also the motor for the bellows and the electric (direct current) generator. He started selling these new instruments with alacrity. It is an often-held belief that Austin organs have tracker-like lifespan, and this is evidenced by the fact that several of these early instruments, Opus 2 from 1894 for example, continue to play well year after year.

A discussion of the Austin mechanism would easily consume an entire volume, but in digest form, the organ utilizes one manual motor (primary note action) for each note, or key, in a division, and one stop action motor for each stop on a main windchest. The valves under each pipe are not leather pouches, such as one might find in a Skinner, Möller, or other electro-pneumatic instrument, but in an Austin, they are simply mechanical valves connected by wooden trackers (yes, trackers!) to the manual motor for each particular note. This mechanism is reliable and inherently self-adjusting. Springs and felt guides allow wild changes in humidity and temperature with no degradation in performance. The whole concept is, in a word, brilliant!

In 1899, perhaps the apex of the American Industrial Revolution, John T. Austin was just 30 years old when he moved into the facility on Woodland Street in Hartford, Connecticut. Legend has it that that the crew (including JTA) was installing the organ at the Fourth Congregational Church (Opus 22, now the Liberty Christian Center) when the factory in Detroit burned to the ground. Actually, John T. Austin was in Woodstock, Ontario, supervising the construction of the first and only Austin organ constructed by the Karn-Warren Company. The date of the fire was February 2, 1899 (the feast of Candlemas!). On March 31 of that year, the Austin Organ Company was incorporated in the state of Maine. The company actually signed a contract for a new organ on March 1 of that year and rented factory space in Boston—just down the street from the first, soon-to-be Skinner organ factory. The following August, the board of directors authorized the acquisition of the Hartford facility.

The business moved along quickly. It would be safe to say that most instruments of this period were of moderate size; literally dozens of three and four-manual instruments were delivered between 1900 and 1915. This was the point in Austin’s history when some rather significant and interesting instruments were installed. For example: Opus 323, The Kotzschmar Memorial Organ (www.foko.org) was built for the City Hall in Portland, Maine. It was one of the first municipal organs installed in the country. The organ has been played and maintained with loving care. A handsome, new five-manual drawknob console was built for the organ by the Austin firm in 2000.

This organ was followed a few years later by Opus 453, the Spreckels Organ in Balboa Park, San Diego, on New Year’s Eve, 1914. The largest and most renowned outdoor organ, it was the gift of businessmen John D. Spreckels and his brother Adolph B. Spreckels. The organ continues to be heard in regular concerts and events. Dr. Carol Williams retains the position as Municipal Organist, performing regularly to hundreds (www.sosorgan.com). This organ was originally built for the Panama-California Exposition, before being re-gifted to the city.

Meanwhile, up the coast in San Francisco, the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco would open just two months later and run concurrently with the San Diego event. Austin was chosen from a list of about 31 builders to construct the organ for this exposition, and was given a stiff timeline: six months! It was completed the very morning that the exposition opened. When the exposition was concluded, the organ was moved to the Civic Auditorium. The city’s new municipal organist, Edwin Lemare, specified scores of tonal and mechanical changes that he required the Austin Company to complete upon re-installation. Of primary concern was the fact that the organ was being moved from a space that seated 3,000 to an auditorium with a capacity of over 10,000. The organ had many years of fame, but fell to near-obscurity in the late 1950s. In 1963, the Austin firm built a stunning black lacquer drawknob console. It saw a bit more use, but the horrific 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake rendered the organ silent. The organ sustained some damage due to falling debris. Funds were eventually allocated to repair and re-install the organ. The organ was returned to Hartford, and much work had been completed, but a few months into the project, a directive from the city ordered the organ to be returned to San Francisco. It remains in storage beneath the city, much like that final scene of Indiana Jones’s Raiders of the Lost Ark!

Opus 558 would be the company’s first five-manual instrument, built for the Medinah Temple (Masonic Lodge) in Chicago. This organ also had a sister stopkey console of four manuals. During this period, the company production averaged over 60 new pipe organs a year! The next major instrument would be for the Eastman Theater (for the Eastman School of Music); Opus 1010 was a unique theatre organ—the largest ever—of 229 stops! It was, sadly, removed in the 1970s. There were additional notable instruments during this time: the University of Colorado received a four-manual, 119-stop instrument in 1922. The Cincinnati Music Hall awarded a contract for Opus 1109, an 87-stop instrument that utilized much of the existing Hook & Hastings pipework. Opus 1416, a four-manual instrument of 200 stops, was built for the Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The final large concert hall organ of this period, Opus 1627, four manuals and 102 stops, was built for Hartford’s own Horace Bushnell Memorial Hall in 1929.

By the mid-1920s, Austin Organ Company was producing over 80 new pipe organs annually. This trend continued until the crash of 1929 and ensuing depression era. The company soldiered on, a bit weakened because of the lack of new business, tremendous overhead (the factory was expanded over three times from its original footprint), and company financing of new instruments to churches, from which payments only dribbled in. In July 1935, The Diapason published the announcement that the Austin Organ Company would close its doors. Non-specific Austin assets and raw materials were sold, and remaining contracts were completed (the final A.O.C. contract was number 1885). A few folks remained to complete warranty work and move the Austin tools and machines into storage. At this time, young Frederic Basil Austin and long-time employee Harold Dubrule kept the fires burning by completing some small rebuilds and service jobs. It was this association that inspired John T. Austin’s nephew to consider purchasing the company, a process that was completed in 1937.

The second Austin milestone: 1937—reorganization and move into a new facility

The “new” Austin Organs, Incorporated opened its doors in February of 1937. The transition from the old management to the new Austin was as seamless as could be expected. They were able to return most employees to their workstations, however, in a scaled-down facility located directly behind the behemoth structure that had been home to the company for the previous 36 years. For the first few years, the company leased the property from G. F. Heublein & Bro. Distributors—liquor distributors for much of the East Coast, famous for their pre-mixed “Club Cocktails.” A wooden guard mounted to an ancient band saw that is still in service in the Austin mill is actually a trespassing warning sign from the pre-1937 Heublein days. Within a few years, the property was purchased by the Austin corporation, and over the next three decades the buildings were expanded several times.

The original factory was rather foursquare—four stories, small footprint. Then a separate wood frame structure was built that served as an erecting room, then a fire, then the mill and new brick erecting room, additions to the main building that became pneumatic departments, more voicing rooms, console and cabinet shop, etc. The design department and metal pipe shop grew along the railroad tracks, requiring the private rail siding to be moved. In the late 1960s, the final addition was the large shipping/receiving and casting room. This expansion required a somewhat more adventurous move: purchase of land from the N.Y./N.H. & Hartford Railroad. Somehow, it was pulled off; the centerline of the main rail appears to have been moved slightly north, and the siding was completely eliminated. The sprawl of the factory now reached nearly 50,000 square feet. Sometimes it was not enough, but it is as efficient as any multi-story manufacturing space can be.

A charming, vintage Otis elevator allows safe and uncomplicated material transport between floors. Systems throughout the factory are up to date, and have been carefully maintained by conscientious staff and the foresight of F. B. Austin’s son, Donald. Assuming the role of president in 1973, Don was a formidable figure in the organ industry. He was a very private person, well respected by his colleagues and employees. Aside from his devotion to the company and care of the physical plant, he maintained the Austin tradition of assiduous design trends.

The well-regarded voicer, David Broome, who retired as tonal director at Austin in 1998, describes the “Austin sound” as never one of extremes. Austin has, as he expresses it, not traditionally been a leader in any new tonal movement in organbuilding. That being said, the company has always built a well-balanced chorus. Even instruments from the 1930s, when so many of our hallowed builders (now gone) built the most tubby-sounding diapason choruses, one can hear the gentle articulation and effects of moderately scaled Austin pipework. We can argue about the sound of the vintage Austin trumpets and oboes, etc., but we never find reeds like them—they not only remain in tune, but have good, steady tonal color as well. The construction of reed pipes was just one of the more than four dozen patents that the Austin Company was granted through the years.

The company motto—Scientia Artem Adjuvat—was not just a clever marketing concept for the Austin family; it was a way of life. Many of the machines in the factory that are used for Austin were made right here. So, we have the machines that repair the machines, right here in the factory! The now famous seven-headed monster that is used to build pedal and stop action blocks was originally built in the front building, and moved here in 1937. It has been improved several times, most recently this year when we added new bushings and guides to allow the belts to travel and run their saws and drills efficiently. (Rafael Ramos, who has been mill foreman since the 1980s, states that it now runs faster and smoother than ever before.)

In 1999, Don Austin retired from active participation in the daily operation of the company. He appointed his daughter Kimberlee as president. He continued as CEO until his death in the fall of 2004. In early 2005, Kimberlee Austin resigned her position with the company.

On an otherwise pleasant Monday in March of 2005, I received a phone call from Trinity College Organist John Rose. He told me that as of that afternoon, the Austin Company would be closing its doors. I was shocked. It felt as though my slightly peculiar but lovable old uncle had passed away. (We were at that time competitors, of course.) We wondered how in the world this could happen. Austin was always so . . . solid. The truth of the matter was that, in fact, the company did not “close”, but just temporarily ceased manufacturing new organs. There was no bankruptcy, no liquidation of tooling or assets. Don Austin’s wife, Marilyn, retained the services of business consultants; the result of their consultation was basically a public offering in the form of a letter sent to nearly every organbuilder or supplier in the country, while Marilyn and a few employees kept the phones answered and made small parts for existing instruments.

The third Austin milestone:
2007—a new direction

In the late 1960s, Richard Taylor, a former Aeolian-Skinner employee and New England Conservatory graduate, arrived at Austin Organs to assume the position of the soon-to-retire Les Barrows, who had been purchasing manager for 59 years. After a couple of years working in the plant and in the service department, the day finally arrived when he would occupy a small desk in the corner of the factory offices on the second floor. At the rather generous rate of $2.00 an hour, he was fairly pleased with his position. In the early 1970s, there was a brief drop in organ sales, and Don Austin decided to cut back in every department. He decided that there was no need for a purchasing manager. So, Mr. Taylor moved on to other industries, among them, purchasing manager–military operations for Colt Firearms. By the late 1980s, he had returned to organbuilding, as superintendent at the former Berkshire Organ Company in Western Massachusetts.

As for me, I have studied engineering in Springfield, Massachusetts, music at Westminster Choir College, and Emergency Medicine at Northeastern University. I had attended two seminaries, and for a short time was a novice in a small Franciscan religious order. Leaving all that behind, I applied science to music, and was working with Berkshire Organs in its final years, where I discovered the absolute wonder of the technology that transmits music from the organist, through the console, windchests and eventually evokes sound from the pipework.

Following the demise of Berkshire Organs in 1989, we formed American Classic Organ Company. While remaining a modest-sized operation, we completed several new instruments and built a respectable service business. We located the workshops in sleepy Chester, Connecticut in 2000.

We came into the Austin picture during the summer of 2005. Through a series of events, we received a letter proposing financial investment or purchase. After several weeks of soul-searching and discussions, we were able to come to an agreement. In January 2006, we purchased the assets and liabilities of the company. Almost immediately a dozen employees returned to their benches, sales representatives arrived back at the door, and the company has begun to rebuild. Several new people have since been added to the roster of Austin employees. The new management aims to build team spirit, stay nimble, and remain rational in the face of terror!

Among the projects completed this year have been dozens of action orders for existing Austin organs (often delivered ahead of schedule). We designed, built and delivered a mahogany four-manual drawknob console in 62 days. It was constructed on the traditional Austin steel-frame system. We completed a major project on an instrument in Lansing, Michigan, which required a new console, utilizing the existing (stripped and refinished) casework, re-actioning, and some tonal additions. A new instrument, Opus 2790, will be installed this coming Easter. This contract was negotiated within a few weeks of restructuring. Several interesting projects are pending for 2007. The metal pipe shop has completed new pipework for the new organ on the floor right now (Opus 2790) and other Austin projects. We have also recently completed extensive repairs and historic renovation on several sets of vintage Aeolian-Skinner pipework at the Mormon Tabernacle. We continue to cast our own pipe metal, and manufacture both flue and reed pipes.

The company is celebrating the milestones of 114 years since the first Austin organ was built, and 70 years since reorganization and move into the current factory. We are on solid footing and in good shape to complete projects large and small, with confident vision of significant growth and expansion.
In quiet moments around the factory, you can hear the faint, yet distinct footsteps of John, Basil, F.B., and Don Austin, as their spirits permeate every process and instrument. The memories of so many gifted and wonderful people who have literally spent their lives here continue to affect our days. They are all a constant reminder of our commitment and challenge to continue Austin’s heritage in American organbuilding. We are humbled to bring new life into this venerable institution, and the many calls and notes we receive encourage us to move forward to celebrate whatever might be the “next milestone.”

—Michael Brian Fazio