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 172
Scan 172
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
16 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 146. See the scan on archive.org.
1work of George Stevens.25 It continued in use only until 1860 when another was purchased by the parish.
3William Selby, a prominent Boston organist from 1772-1789, helped in obtaining better concerts and choruses. The first recorded concerts in the United States had been held December 1731 in Boston, 1736 in New York and the first song recital was given in America in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1733.26
5The Brattle Square Church, Cambridge, apparently repented its earlier decision and in 1790 ordered an organ built in London. Even then there was opposition to its use by some church members.
7Other early New England organ builders were John Rowe (1795-1812) and Adam and John Geib. The Geibs were supposed to have built the organ used in North Church, Salem, Massachusetts.27 John Geib & Son, organ builders, were in business in New York from 1802-1806. In 1806 Adam and another John Geib from England started the later well known pianoforte business of this family.
9One of the first important organ builders of America was William Goodridge, born at Templeton, Massachusetts, July 21, 1777. He altered his last name to Goodrich and took a middle name of Marcellus. "His first knowledge of the Organ was gathered by his visiting a Mr. Bruce who had been assisting a Dr. Josiah Leavitt of Sterling, to construct a small Organ of wooden pipes, and on his return to Templeton [he] made one for himself.
11"About 1798 Mr. Goodrich was a while employed in the shop of Mr. [Henry] Pratt of Winchester, N. H., in making a small Organ of wooden pipes. Here he obtained a further knowledge of Organ building and learned to make and voice wooden pipes. [Mr. Pratt's first organ built about 1790 can be seen in the Public Library of Winchester, N. H. It has 1 manual and 6 stops and the metal pipes were made out of old tea leaf tin foil.] The relations of Mr. Goodrich say that he first came to Boston in 1799. Here he got acquainted with a Captain Joshua Withole (?) who had an Organ, a 'Chamber Organ,' which was built by Jenney's, an engraver of Boston, for his own use. Mr. Goodrich became acquainted with Mr. Withole and, their tastes running in the same
1325 Information supplied by William B. Goodwin, organ builder, Lowell, Mass.
1426 Lahee, Henry C. Annals of Music in America p. 4.
1527 Lahee, Henry C. "Organs and Organ Building in New England." New England Magazine, December 1897 p. 492.
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