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 186
Scan 186
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
13 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 160. See the scan on archive.org.
1ORIGINAL MORMON TABERNACLE pipe organ, Salt Lake City, Utah.
2George S. Hutchings is authority10 for the statement that the firm of Simmons built the action and complicated parts of the interior and did the voicing while the Mormons built the lower bass notes and the case, noted for its Beehives. The action and parts were of fine pipework. This organ has been rebuilt twice.
4Organs were also built by this company for Arlington Street Church, Boston; St. John's Church, Jamaica Plain; West Church, Boston; Tremont Street Methodist Church, Boston; the 2 manual Music Hall Organ, Cranston, Rhode Island; and a few others.
6GEORGE S. HUTCHINGS COMPANY (HUTCHINGS, PLAISTED & CO. AND ALSO HUTCHINGS-VOTEY ORGAN COMPANY)
8This business was started in 1869 by Dr. John H. Willcox, who had associated with him in the J. H. Willcox Co. "three of the most capable organ builders to be found in the country—Messrs. Hutchings, Plaisted and (G. V.) Nordstrom." Dr. Willcox was a noted recitalist and tone worker, who had worked for Hook & Hastings and had been a partner of Simmons & Willcox for a short time. George S. Hutchings and Mark H. Plaisted had also worked for Hook & Hastings. This company had a new factory specially constructed for them at [address hidden] near Eustis, and were located there by 1871.
10According to an unlabelled and undated newspaper cutting in the Music Department of the Boston Public Library the J. H. Willcox Company specialized at the start in a "Chapel Organ" for chapels, religious houses and small churches. Dr. Willcox' aim was to produce an instrument of moderate size, which, within its limits as to power and technical resources, was to be a perfectly complete organ, not an isolated section of a larger instrument. By an ingenious and what this article writer considered a novel contrivance, the front of the organ, not occupied with pipes, was made to serve the purpose of the swell, presenting, when the swell was shut, a front beautifully decorated in the religious style, but opening when the swell was opened in a series of reversible folds. This
1210 Mr. Hutchings told this personally to William B. Goodwin, organ builder. That Mr. Hutchings and Mr. Simmons were well acquainted is attested by the fact that the latter's widow gave his books on organ building to Mr. Hutchings, who gave one of them to Mr. Goodwin.
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