Books › Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937 › scan 169
Scan 169
Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937
15 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 143. See the scan on archive.org.
1New York City, in 1737, while Mr. Spillane who had access to the Philadelphia Historical Society records claims that Mathias Zimmerman built an organ in Philadelphia before 1737.
3Unless it is found that William Claggett built the organ he put up in Christ Church in 1736, the first attempt at organ construction in New England was a large organ erected by Edward Bromfield, Jr., who later essayed harpsichords about which no information is available. This organ, built in 1745, "had two rows of keys and many hundred pipes, his intention being 1200, but he died before he completed it."13 This organ was moved during the siege of Boston from the Old South Church to a store belonging to William Phillips for safekeeping. It was unfortunately burned there so we cannot see the instrument of which was written "the workmanship of the pipes and keys surprisingly nice and curious, exceeding anything of the kind that ever came out here from England."14
5The Johnston organ built for St. Peter's, Salem, somehow came into the possession of Hook & Hastings around 1889.15 It had but one manual and six stops. "On the name board was an inscription in German text, in ivory as follows—'Thomas Johnston, fecit, Boston, Nov., Anglorum, 1754.'… He died in 1768 and was succeeded by Dr. Josiah Leavitt, previously a practising physician, [at Sterling, Mass. 1774-1787] who for a number of years engaged in the business."16 The latter built the organ which the First Universalist Society, Boston, was using in 1817.17
7"The Brattle organ was replaced at King's Chapel in 1756 by a new instrument imported from London. Tradition has it that it was sent as a gift from the King to the Church of England in Boston and that it was selected or approved and played upon by no less a musician than George Frederic Handel. But a list of eighty names, preserved in the church files, shows that 623 pounds was raised by subscription to pay the original cost of 500 pounds and the transportation charges.18 A letter from the shippers, Thomlinson, Trecothick & Co., dated June 15, 1756, stated that the organ had been thoroughly tried by Mr. Stanley and several other of the lead-
913 A Hundred Years of Music in America p. 325.
1014 Hood, George. A History of Music in New England p. 152.
1115 When, how or what became of this instrument the company is now unable to tell.
1216 A Hundred Years of Music in America p. 326.
1317 Shaw, Charles. A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, 1817. Oliver Spear, p. 260.
1418 For this history and many more interesting details see Frederick N. Shackley's article "Organ's History Covers 170 Years—Sketch of the Instrument Formerly in King's Chapel, Boston, and now in the First Baptist Church, Brockton, Mass." The Diapason April 1926 p. 36.
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