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 171
Scan 171
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
12 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 145. See the scan on archive.org.
1workmen for there are constant entries of expenses for 'fixing' it." 20
2This organ figured in the American Revolution in 1775, when the company of Captain John Chester from Wethersfield, Conn., was quartered in the church, and the colleges and other buildings in Cambridge were occupied as barracks by the provincial troops after the Battle of Lexington. The men undoubtedly removed the metal organ pipes and probably the window weights "to be molded into bullets which on June 17 were a part of the ammunition used at Bunker Hill." 21 "On the last Sunday [at the instance of Mrs. Washington] services were held in the church by Col. William Palfry, and were attended by General Washington and his wife, Mrs. Custis and others. Whether there were enough pipes left in the organ to allow of its use on that day, we are not informed." 21 When a funeral service was held in June 1778 for a British Lieutenant, who had been killed through a misunderstanding, the Americans came into this Tory Church, which had been closed, and "plundered, and ransacked and defaced everything they could lay hands on … and ascending the organ loft, destroyed the bellows and broke all the pipes of a very handsome instrument. Pieces of the organ were strewn about Cambridge for a long time after this desecration; they were picked up even in the roads." 22
4When the Church was reopened "the organ wholly torn to pieces" was repaired. "The efforts to restore the organ to a serviceable condition were numerous, but only a portion of the destroyed stops were ever replaced. In the correspondence with Christ Church, Boston, it transpired that a number of the pipes had been 'loaned' to the old North." 23 The organ was put in some sort of order and served until 1844 when it was at last removed and replaced. This history was related by John Bachelder when he presented the relics to the New England Conservatory of Music in 1884. 24 One pipe of that organ, Tenor C, 4 ft., bottom pipe of the octave, is still in use in the Blossom Street Baptist Church, Lowell, Massachusetts. 25 It has a good tone. The organ which replaced this was a new one presented by the senior warden, possibly the
620 Christ Church, Cambridge—Some Account of Its History and Present Condition—Especially Prepared for Visitors. Cambridge, 1893, p. 17.
721 A Hundred Years of Music in America pp. 325 & 326.
822 Christ Church, Cambridge—Some Account of Its History and Present Condition—Especially Prepared for Visitors. Cambridge, 1893, p. 46.
923 Ibid p. 51.
1024 A Hundred Years of Music in America p. 325.
1125 Information supplied by William B. Goodwin, organ builder, Lowell, Mass.
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