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THOMAS PRENTICE SANBORN: HIS LIFE, CAREER, AND EXTANT ORGANS
BY
ELAINE SUZANNE SONNENBERG
Submitted to the faculty of the
Jacobs School of Music in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree,
Doctor of Music in Organ Performance,
Indiana University
May, 2014
ii
Accepted by the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music,
Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree Doctor of Music in Organ Performance
___________________________________
Christopher Young, Research Director
__________________________________
Janette Fishell
__________________________________
Eric Isaacson
__________________________________
Bruce Neswick
iii
Copyright © 2014
Elaine Suzanne Sonnenberg
iv
Dedicated in memory of Lorena A. Arps
v
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Ed Boadway, John Carnahan, Janette Fishell, Michael Friesen, Andrew
Gingery, John Goulding, Eric Isaacson, Phil Lehman, Bruce Neswick, Stephen Pinel,
Bynum Petty, Michael Rathke, Thaddeus Reynolds, Joe Roberts, Jan Sonnenberg,
William Van Pelt, Paige Wassel, Thomas Wood, and Christopher Young
vi
Table of Contents
Dedication Page
iv
Acknowledgements
v
Figures
vii
List of Appendices
ix
Thomas Prentice Sanborn: His Life, Career, and Extant Organs
I.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s Life from 1823 to 1874: His
Apprenticeship with E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings
II.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s Career from 1874 to 1882: His
Work as Shop Foreman for William Horatio Clarke’s
Organbuilding Firm
III.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s Career from 1882 to 1903:
T.P. Sanborn & Son
IV.
The 1883 T.P. Sanborn & Son organ for First Church German
Evangelical Association, Indianapolis, Indiana
V.
The 1892 T.P. Sanborn & Son organ for Central Avenue
United Methodist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana
Appendices
Bibliography
vii
Figures
Chapter I.
1a. Thomas Prentice Sanborn
1b. Amelia Sanborn
1c. Sanborn Tremulant, Patent No. 107, 549
Chapter II.
2a. Sacred Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic Church, Shelby, Ohio (2013) 54
2b. 1879 W. H. Clarke & Co., Shelby, Ohio
2c. W. H. Clarke & Co. 1879, John G.P. Leek Organ Company
2d. Console of the 1879 W. H. Clarke, Shelby, Ohio
2e. Flat Pedalboard with a twenty-seven note compass,
1879 W. H. Clarke & Co.
2f. Swell trackers, Great and Swell stickers, Swell trackers,
backfall beam, and square rails, Opus twenty-four,
Great bung-board, 1879 W. H. Clarke & Co.
2g. Double-rise reservoir, 1879 W. H. Clarke & Co.
2h. Great roller board, 1879 W. H. Clarke & Co.
2i. Original pedal trackers, to Manual/Pedal coupler backfalls
1879 W. H. Clarke & Co.
2j. 16’ Sub Bass, 1879 W. H. Clarke & Co.
Chapter III.
3a. T.P. Sanborn & Son shop location, 1887 Indianapolis,
Indiana City Directory
3b. T.P. Sanborn & Son location, 1887 Indianapolis City Directory
3c. T.P. Sanborn & Son organ factory description, 1887
Indianapolis City Directory
3d. T.P. Sanborn & Son advertisement in the
1885 Indiana Polk’s Gazetteer
3e. T.P. Sanborn’s second shop (behind the residential house)
3f. Photographs of T.P. Sanborn & Son for Memorial
Presbyterian Church
Chapter IV.
4a. 1883 Sanborn & Son at Immanuel Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis 104
4b. 1883 Sanborn & Son at St. Francis-in-the-Fields
Episcopal Church
4c.T.P. Sanborn & Son, St. Mark’s United Methodist Church
4d. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son, pipe scalings
4e. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son, double-rise reservoir
viii
4f. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son, Swell roller board
4g. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son, Swell and Great roller boards,
Square Rails
4h. Great backfall assembly, Swell trackers (horizontal)
4i. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son Swell shades and trace
4j. 1883 T P. Sanborn & Son, pedalboard, composition pedals,
Swell shoe
4k. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son bungboard clamp (Great)
4l. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son trademark bungboard clamp
(Pedal chest)
4m. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son trademark bungboard clamp
(Swell chest)
4n. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son bungboard clamps
(Michael Rathke drawing)
Chapter V.
5a. Central Avenue United Methodist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana
5b. T. S. & Son
5c. T. P. Sanborn
5d. T. P. Sanborn & Son, Central Avenue United Methodist Church
5e. Patent No. 394, 423, Thomas P. Sanborn
5f. 1892 T. P. Sanborn, Bungboard clamps
5g.1892 Sanborn, Reisner console
5h. 1892 Sanborn, original Sanborn stenciling
5i. 1892 Sanborn, Indiana Landmarks Center, 2010 restoration
ix
Appendices
Appendix A – Glossary
Appendix B – Jesse G. Crane Collection
154
Memorial Presbyterian Church
First Church Evangelical Association
Central Avenue United Methodist Church
Appendix C – Samuel Pierce Price List, Wm. H. Clarke & Co. Advertisement
Samuel Pierce Price List
Wm. H. Clarke & Co. Advertisement
Appendix D – Letters – Andrew Gingery, Michael Rathke
Andrew Gingery
Michael Rathke
1
Chapter I. Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s Life from 1823 to 1874:
His Apprenticeship with E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings
Thomas Prentice Sanborn (1823–1903) was born in Sanbornton, New Hampshire
on November 17, 1823, and spent the first three decades of his career as a carpenter and
farmer. In 1870, at the age of forty-seven, he learned organ construction and design with
E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings, working for their firm for four years. Thomas Prentice
Sanborn’s tutelage with E & G.G. Hook & Hastings helped lay the foundation for his
own approach to organ-building; his instruments resembled Hook’s in disposition and
tonal design.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s ancestors were among the first settlers in the
Colonies. A genealogy of the surname Sanborn entitled, “Samborne or Sanborn in
England and America 1194–1898,” was written by V. C. Sanborn and printed in 1899.
According to this genealogy, Sanborn was first spelled Samborne in America. Eventually
the “e” was eliminated, and by 1750 the “m” was replaced with an “n.” The surname
Samborne was derived from the Anglo-Saxon words Sand and Burma (stream), meaning
a sandy location with a stream.1 V. C. Sanborn suggested five possibilities for the
geographic location on which the family name, Samborne, was based: Sambourne, a
division of the parish of Warminster in Wiltshire; the Sambourne Bridge in northern
Wiltshire; Sambourne in the parish of Coughton, Warwick; Sandbourne, a carpet-
1 Sanborn, V.C. Genealogy of the Family of Samborne or Sanborn in England and America 1194-1898.
Privately Printed for the Author, 1899.
2
weaving town in Worcestershire, England; or Sandburn, a hamlet of the parish of
Stockton-on-the-Forest in Yorkshire.2
The Reverend Stephen Bachiler was the first descendant of the Sanborn lineage to
arrive in America. He originated from Hampshire and was a Vicar of Wherwell.3 On
March 9, 1642, he boarded the William and Francis for America with his second wife,
Helen, and three grandchildren, John, William, and Stephen Samborne. They arrived in
Boston, Massachusetts, on June 3, 1632.4 The Reverend Bachiler was a reformer who had
“suffered much at the hands of the Bishops.” He fled to America in his old age with the
hope of finding more religious and social freedom.5
The youngest of the Reverend Bachilor’s six children, Anne, was born in 1600
and married William of Brimpton, Berkshire County, England (a Samborne) in 1619.
Anne was the mother of John, William, and Stephen Samborn. V. C. Sanborn states that
“circumstantial evidence leaves no reasonable doubt that the father of John, William, and
Stephen Samborne of Hampton was one of the Hampshire Sambornes and was a
descendant of Nicholas of Mapledurham.”6 There is no record that Anne traveled to
America with her father and sons, and also no trace of her sons in the new land until
1639.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn was a direct descendant of John Sanborne. John
Sanborne married Mary, the daughter of Robert Tuck, and their son Richard (b. January
4, 1655) was the first of Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s ancestors to be born in the Colonies.
Richard Sanborne married Ruth Moulton, who died in 1685, and then married Mary
2 Sanborn, Genealogy, 3.
3 Sanborn, Genealogy, 59.
4 Sanborn, Genealogy, 74.
5 Sanborn, Genealogy, 60.
6 Sanborn, Genealogy, 1.
3
Boulter, the widow of Nathaniel Boulter. Richard and Mary’s son, John Sanborn (b.
November 6, 1681), was Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s great-great grandfather. He started
out as a soldier from Hampton, New Hampshire, in 1708, and later rose to the rank of
sergeant in Lovewell’s War of 1724. At this point he was promoted to the rank of
ensign.7 Ensign John’s son, Lieutenant Ebenezer Sanborn (Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s
great grandfather), was born on March 4, 1712, and lived in North Hampton and
Hampton, New Hampshire.8 Lieutenant Ebenezer was a town clerk and sheriff. He was a
grantee of Sanbornton, New Hampshire, and was described in V. C. Sanborn’s genealogy
as a large, prominent man.
Lieutenant Ebenezer Sanborn’s son, Ebenezer Sanborn (Thomas Prentice
Sanborn’s grandfather), was born on April 15, 1755, in Hampton. He married Huldah
Philbrick and they resided in her hometown of Sanbornton. Ebenezer’s youngest son and
Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s father, Simeon, was born on October 8, 1793. Thomas
Prentice never knew his grandfather, since Ebenezer died from a fall from his horse in
1820.
According to Moses T. Runnel’s book, “A History of Sanbornton, New
Hampshire,” Thomas Prentice Sanborn was the son of Simeon Sanborn and Lucy S.
Palmer.9 Simeon was a farmer and a veteran of the War of 1812. He was also elected
Trustee of the Woodman Sanbornton Academy in 1840.10 Simeon and Lucy married on
December 3, 1817. They resided in Sanbornton, New Hampshire, and had three children:
Abigail (b. April 2, 1820; d. May 3, 1838), Thomas Prentice (b. November 17, 1823), and
7 Sanborn, Genealogy, 95.
8 Sanborn, Genealogy, 117.
9 Runnel, A History of Sanbornton, 664.
10 Friesen, unpublished research.
4
Charles Edwin (b. August 16, 1828). Simeon worked on his father’s farm (Ebenezer
Sanborn) until 1848 when he relocated to Plymouth Village and became a “highly
respected” deacon for the Congregational Church.11 Lucy Sanborn died on September 9,
1876, and Simeon spent his final days farming with his son, Charles Edwin, in Campton
Grafton, New Hampshire.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn (figure 1a, on page 23) married Elizabeth Ann, the
daughter of James and Jane (née Gibson) Sanborn, on April 12, 1846. They had one
daughter, Abigail Jane, on October 9, 1847. Abigail married Edgar Merrill, a farmer from
Campton, New Hampshire, on September 13, 1871. Abigail J. Sanborn-Merrill (1847–
1876) and Edgar resided in Boston, Massachusetts and had three children: Herbert M.
Merrill (b. 1871), Abbie Merrill (b. 1872), and Martha E. Merrill (b.1873). Martha E.
Merrill married Weldon P. Shute and they had two children: Donald (1901–1991) and
Dorothy S. Shute (1900–?). Dorothy S. Shute married Earl Everett Bates (1891–1974)
and they resided in Laconia, New Hampshire, and had three children: Donald L. Bates,
Mary Ruth Bates (?–1933), and Richard D. Bates (?–1934).
Elizabeth Ann, Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s first wife, died of consumption on
December 17, 1848 at the age of twenty-five or twenty-six. He married his second wife,
Amelia A. York (b. November 26, 1827, d. unknown), on April 9, 1850. On page 24,
figure 1b, is a photograph of Amelia A. York. Thomas Prentice and Amelia had three
children: Elizabeth Ann (b. May 9, 1853), William Marshall (b. September 4, 1855), and
Emma Amelia (b. March 8, 1872; d. 1875).
Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s daughter, Elizabeth Sanborn, married Howard Emery
(1853–1941), a native of Boston and a lieutenant. At the time of Thomas Prentice
11 Runnel, A History of Sanbornton, 664.
5
Sanborn’s obituary publication, Howard Emery was stationed at New Orleans. He and his
wife Elizabeth were listed in Portland, Oregon, in the 1910 census; in Lowell,
Massachusetts in the 1920 census; and in Washington, D.C. in the 1930 census. Howard
died in the town of Laconia, New Hampshire, where the descendants of Thomas Prentice
Sanborn’s oldest daughter, Abigail Jane, resided. The census records do not report that
Elizabeth Ann and Howard Emery had children. Information on Thomas Prentice
Sanborn’s son, William Marshall, will be provided in Chapter Three.
According to the 1860 U.S. Federal Population Census, Thomas Prentice
Sanborn’s second residence was Campton Grafton, New Hampshire. At the time of this
census, Thomas Prentice was thirty-seven, Amelia was thirty-two, Abbie Sanborn was
twelve, Lizzie Sanborn was seven, and Willie Sanborn was four.12 Sanborn continued to
follow the career path of his ancestors, working with his family as a farmer and carpenter
during his years in Campton. The work ethic he gained as a farmer and craft he learned as
a carpenter were surely vital qualities he utilized while overseeing his own organ-
building company more than a decade later.
The Sanborn family moved to Boston, Massachusetts in the early 1870s.
Although the exact date of their relocation is unknown, they resided in Boston, Ward 15,
Suffolk at 220 Ruggles Street. Emma Amelia, his fourth daughter, and third child with
his second wife Amelia, was born while the family was living at this location on March 8,
1872.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn apprenticed with and worked for E. & G. G. Hook &
Hastings while living in Boston. This company was a premier pipe organ designing and
manufacturing firm which did business from 1827–1935. It was begun by two brothers,
12 1860 U. S. Census.
6
Elias and George Greenleaf Hook. Frank Hastings became a partner with the firm in
1871. Aesthetic and tonal characteristics of E. & G.G. Hook’s instruments display first-
hand how American organ-building was influenced in this period by the English and, to a
lesser extent, the German and French traditions. To trace the lineage from England to
America (from the Hook brothers to William Horatio Clarke and Thomas Prentice
Sanborn) a brief outline of the history of organ-building in America, with particular
emphasis on the Boston area, will be provided in the following pages.
From 1534 to 1760, towns of the colonies were the center of activity for work,
church, and school.13 Since most of the original settlers were Calvinists who saw the
organ as a pagan instrument, the earliest organs in the United States were primarily parlor
organs reserved for domestic devotions and entertainment, rather than public worship.
Congregational singing was typically accompanied by a bass viol, or other instruments
like the bassoon and cello.14 The first recorded use of an organ in church was at a
Lutheran church in Philadelphia in 1703; it was a small positive organ that German
settlers brought over in 1694.15 Boston, Massachusetts, was the largest city in the
colonies and was an early leader in shipbuilding and lumbering.16 The Anglican churches
in the region were the first to incorporate organs into their worship services and they
established a long-standing American tradition of turning to England for a model for
church music.17 Most of the organs purchased for American churches were imported
13 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 9.
14 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 10.
15 Williams, The Organ, 148.
16 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 9.
17 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 10.
7
from England and many of the organists who served these congregations were from
Europe.18
One of the first organs documented in New England was the Brattle organ. This
one-manual instrument was built in England and was imported circa 1708 to Boston.19 It
was the property of Thomas Brattle; after Brattle died in 1713, he left the instrument to
the Brattle Square Church.20 When this institution declined his gift, it was given to
Queen’s Chapel (now known as King’s Chapel). At this location, the instrument officially
became one of the first pipe organs to be used for a worship service in the colonies.21 It
was subsequently relocated several times before being restored by Charles Fisk in 1965.22
The following was the specification of the instrument in 1708:
Brattle Organ23
c. 1708
Stopt Diapason 8’ (49 Wood Pipes)
Principal 4’ (49 Open Wood Pipes)
Fifteenth 2’ Bass (25 Metal Pipes)
Fifteenth 2’ Treble (24 Metal Pipes)
Sesquialtera II Bass (19th–22nd)
Sesquialtera II Treble24 (12th–17th)
In 1756, the Brattle organ at King’s Chapel was replaced with an organ by
English organ builder Richard Bridge. This was at the time one of the few three-manual
organs in America. The Great division had a manual compass of fifty-seven notes from
18 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 10.
19 St. John’s Episcopal Church, http://www.stjohnsnh.org/tour/single-gallery/5280086 (accessed August 24,
2013).
20 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 20.
21 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 20.
22 St. John’s Episcopal Church, http://www.stjohnsnh.org/tour/single-gallery/5280086 (accessed August 24,
2013).
23 “The Brattle Organ Restored.”
24 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 21.
8
GG to e3 and the Swell division had a compass that went as low as tenor f or g.25 The
organ did not originally have a pedal division, but one was added in 1824.26
Soon other builders would leave their mark on American organ-building. Another
organ imported to Boston from England was by a London builder, Abraham Jordan, for
Trinity Church, Boston; it was a two-manual instrument with an enclosed Swell.27 Johann
Gottlob Klemm, who immigrated to the Colonies in 1733, was the first Saxon to build
organs in America and built many small instruments plus one three-manual organ for
Trinity Church, New York (1741).28 David Tannenberg, a Moravian organ builder from
Lititz, Pennsylvania, who was influenced greatly by the Silbermann school, was the first
full-time organ builder in America; he built forty organs from 1758 to 1804.29 Edward
Broomfield, Jr. (1723–1746), was the first native colonist to build organs. Thomas
Johnston (1708–1767) was the first professional organ builder in Boston and is credited
with building three organs from 1752-1763, including organs for St. Peter’s Church,
Salem, Massachusetts and Old North Church, Boston.30
The Colonies from 1760 to 1775 were marked by the conclusion of the Seven-
Years War and a renewed loyalty to England and the King.31 Aside from instruments
made by David Tannenberg, who built thirteen organs from 1765 to 1774, most organs of
this time were imported from England by the renowned English organ builder John
Snetzler.32 These organs were intended primarily for German and Anglican churches as
many other denominations still believed organs were inappropriate for use in the worship
25 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 20.
26 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 20.
27 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 25.
28 Williams, The Organ, 148.
29 Williams, The Organ, 148.
30 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 25.
31 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 39.
32 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 41.
9
service.33 Snetzler was born in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, in 1710, and trained with his
cousin Johann Konrad Speisegger. Snetzler at first built small organs, later introducing
new tone colors to English organs, one of which was a Solicional (sic), which sounded
like a Violoncello for some organs and a Viole di Gamba for others.34 His organs were
described by Sir John Sutton (a British politician and colonial administrator), in 1847:
His instruments are remarkable for the purity of their tone, and the extreme
brilliancy of their Chorus Stops, which in this respect surpassed anything that had
been heard before in this country, and which have never since been equaled.35
The Revolutionary War (1775–1783) took a serious toll on organ-building in
America. Trade between England and America came to a virtual halt; as a result, very
few organs were imported. “Many Anglican churches closed” and many “organs were
destroyed or damaged."36
From 1810–1860 the young United States experienced a large growth in
manufacturing. Organ-building during this industrial age was affected by the new
“factory” mentality and featured a shift from Classical and Baroque ideals to Romantic.
Experimentation with key action accelerated and the Barker lever, first brought to
prominence by French organ builder Cavaillé-Coll, was introduced in America in the
1860s.37
There was an upswing in demand for organs during this era for several reasons.
Westward expansion had increased with the development of roads and railroads. In
addition, the population had grown immensely due to immigration from European nations
33 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 41.
34 Bicknell, The History of the English Organ, 178.
35 Bicknell, The History of the English Organ, 178.
36 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 41.
37 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 207.
10
to the young country. As cities grew, churches gained membership, and larger organs
were needed to support congregational singing.
Boston, with its fast-growing population and vast industrial and commercial
development, was the intellectual capital of America until the Civil War.38 The Boston
Philharmonic was founded in 1810; the Handel and Haydn Society formed in 1815. The
local community became known for its great literary achievements and advancements in
the arts. Boston also became the cultural center-point for American organ-building.39
William Goodrich was the leader of organ-building in Boston in 1830 and trained
Thomas Appleton, George Stevens, and Elias and George Hook.40
William Goodrich was born in Templeton, Massachussetts, in 1777.41 He entered
a partnership in 1812 with the Hayts brothers, Alpheus Babcock, and Thomas Appleton.42
Goodrich opened his own shop in 1813, and returned to work with Hayts, Babcock &
Appleton in 1815. When the firm closed later that year, Goodrich became a partner with
Mackay & Co.43 This partnership ended in 1820, and Goodrich worked alone from 1821
until his death in 1833.44 His company produced thirty-eight church organs and eleven
chamber organs for the Boston area, and he trained nearly every influential organ builder
to follow him in Boston. Thomas Appleton studied and worked with Goodrich from 1806
until the Mackay & Co. dissolved in 1820.45 He then worked as an organ builder on his
38 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 114.
39 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 116.
40 Williams, The Organ, 149.
41 Barnes, Two Centuries, 14.
42 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 116.
43 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 116.
44 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 116.
45 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 116.
11
own with Henry Corrie as his voicer from 1824 until 1828, and he completed for
Goodrich the instrument he was working on at the time of his death.46
Elias (1805–1881) and George Hook (1807–1880) were sons of William Hook
(1777–1867), a cabinetmaker in Salem, Massachusetts. Elias went to Boston to work for
William Goodrich as an apprentice in 1821.47 The Hook brothers went on to build “one of
the most successful and important organ-building companies in the nineteenth century.”48
“E. & G.G. Hook and their successors E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings and Hook & Hastings
was the most-important nineteenth-century organ-building firm in New England, rivaled
only by Ernest M. Skinner and the Aeolian Skinner Organ Company in the twentieth-
century.”49 It was one of the longest lasting organ-building companies in the United
States.50
Elias and George Hook opened their first organ-building shop in Salem in 1827
where they built fourteen chamber organs and five small church organs.51 In 1831, the E.
& G.G. Hook Company relocated its shop to Friend Street in Boston.52 From 1831 to
approximately 1841, E & G.G. Hook built four organs a year for churches in
Massachusetts.53 Three instruments were three-manuals and the remainders were smaller
two-manual organs. The largest instrument they built between 1829 and 1849 was Opus
64 (1845) for Tremont Temple, Boston.54 The next one hundred organs E & G.G. Hook
constructed from 1849 to 1856 included nine three-manual instruments and one four-
46 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 119.
47 Owen, The History of the Organ, 162.
48 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 122.
49 Pinel, “E. & G.G. Hook,” 139.
50 Pinel, “E. & G.G. Hook,” 139.
51 Owen, The History of the Organ, 162-165.
52 Owen, The History of the Organ, 162-165
53 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 122.
54 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 124.
12
manual instrument, the Opus 149, fifty-four rank instrument for Tremont Temple in
Boston (Opus 64 having been destroyed by fire).55 They also secured numerous contracts
for organs in other states throughout the country including Alabama, Tennessee, and
Ohio.56
American organ-building in the 1840s and 1850s “derived its direction from the
organs imported from England in earlier times.”57 E & G. G. Hook’s organs utilized the
old GG manual compass until the 1840s, when they began building instruments with the
newer C manual compass.58 A fifty-four to fifty-six note range was standard for larger
instruments, with the GG compass still used for some smaller instruments.59 After 1840,
E & G.G. Hook’s organs had a twenty-seven note pedal compass.
E. & G. G. Hook’s organs in the 1840s-1850s maintained a short swell compass
for smaller instruments, with all ranks except the Stopped Diapason 8’ terminating at
tenor c or f. This was still a feature of many smaller nineteenth century American organs;
a vestige of this practice is found in the 1883 Sanborn, which will be discussed in
Chapter 4. The Stopped Diapason was a divided stop that provided the full range (to C)
for all other swell ranks of 8’ pitch. Toward the end of the century, many of E. & G.G.
Hook’s larger instruments utilized a full compass for all swell stops.
Tonally, the early instruments of E. & G.G. Hook resembled the work of
Goodrich and Appleton.60 The Great divisions of Hook organs in the 1840s were based
on an 8’ Open Diapason with a mellow, refined timbre. The 4’ and higher pitches on the
55 Owen, The History of the Organ, 165.
56 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 124.
57 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 101
58 Owen, The History of the Organ, 169.
59 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 126.
60 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 126.
13
Great were brighter than the 8’ ranks, and the reeds blended with the chorus while adding
dimension to the sound. In comparison with the Great, the Swell and Choir divisions
were secondary and more chamber-organ-like, softer in timbre but similar in clarity to the
Great. The Hook brothers were considered masters at voicing - the clarity of their
principal choruses and particularly their reed pipes was evidence of their quality
craftsmanship and artistry.61
In 1853, E & G.G. Hook built a new factory on Leverett Street, and by the end of
the decade they had become famous as the largest organ-building factory in the country.62
They increased their production to twenty organs in 1854 building fifteen to eighteen
organs a year from 1855 to 1860.63 Elias Hook was the business director of the firm and
George Hook was the voicer and tonal director. Frank Hastings (1836–1916) joined the
company as an employee in 1855, working in the design department.64
E & G.G. Hook continued to follow the early English models of organ-building
into the 1850s, but by the late 1850s they began to observe advancements in English
organ-building. This shift is evident in their organ for the Beneficent Congregational
Society, Providence, Rhode Island (1855–1856). First, this instrument had a more bold
and foundational tone than earlier Hook instruments, but still had the same brilliance,
balance, and clarity of sound.65 Second, the organ featured the first recorded concave and
radiating pedalboard in America. Third, it had three pre-set combinations of stops that
were activated by drawknobs at the console in addition to several combination pedals.66
61 Owen, The History of the Organ, 171.
62 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 124.
63 Owen, The History of the Organ, 179.
64 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 124.
65 Owen, The History of the Organ, 180.
66 Owen, The History of the Organ, 181.
14
E & G.G. Hook continued to dominate the organ-building field into the 1860s.
“By the 1860s the Hook company was turning out over thirty organs a year.”67 In the
mid-1860s, the Civil War greatly affected organ-building throughout the country as many
churches no longer had the funds to purchase an instrument. Industry was more
developed in the North and organbuilders in Boston and New York received most
contracts during this period. The Hook company’s output dropped to fourteen instruments
in 1862 and thirteen in 1863.68
“The war years were not without their significant organs.”69 October 31, 1863
marked the installation of a Walcker & Son organ in Boston Music Hall.70 This
instrument changed the organ-building field in America, as there was now a demand for
large, Germanic organs with more assertive voicing. Sizable organ-building companies,
with the capability of producing large instruments, became more powerful with more
contracts.71
The arrival of the Boston Music Hall Organ in 1863 was undoubtedly seen as
competition by Boston area organ builders. E & G.G. Hook responded by designing
several large instruments, the first of which was the 1863 forty-six stop, three-manual
organ for Immaculate Conception Church, Boston, Massachusetts.72 It was described in
the Boston Musical Times as the “most complete and effective Organ ever built in
America.”73 The diapasons had a “grand fullness and solidity” and the Trumpets had a
67 Owen, The History of the Organ, 179.
68 Owen, The History of the Organ, 186.
69 Owen, The History of the Organ, 187.
70 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 200.
71 Williams, The Organ, 153.
72 Owen, The History of the Organ, 187.
73 Owen, The History of the Organ, 187.
15
“crisp and even tone.”74 In 1864, E. & G.G. Hook built an organ very similar to the
instrument for Boston Music Hall, the four-manual organ for Mechanics’ Hall,
Worcester, Massachusetts.75 The Germanic influence on E. & G. G. Hook is reflected in
a much later instrument which S.L. Huntington & Co. restored and enlarged, an 1889 E.
& G.G. Hook & Hastings for St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Valparaiso, Indiana.
Huntington’s website provides the following information about the instrument:
This instrument (1889) would have been built at the newly finished Weston
factory, with the tonal design by Moritz Baumgarten Jr. who emigrated to this
country from Germany where he was associated with the Walcker firm—famous
for the large instrument installed in the Boston Music Hall in 1863. Baumgarten’s
influence is evident in this instrument particularly in the string voicing which is
very reminiscent of German string voicing of the mid-nineteenth century.76
By the mid-1860s, E. & G.G. Hook’s organs had bold foundation stops which
were balanced by brilliant reeds and upperwork.77 The Hook brothers were using
pneumatic levers in three-manual and larger instruments. Toward the end of the century
the 8’ pitch dominated the thicker and heavier sound, and there was more contrast
between soft and loud stops.78 The manual compass was expanded to fifty-eight notes and
the pedal compass was twenty-seven notes. Wind pressure was typically set at three to
three and a half inches, with occasional instances of solo reeds on higher pressures.79
In 1870, William Horatio Clarke contracted E. & G.G. Hook to build an organ for
The First Unitarian Church, Woburn, Massachusetts. His influence led E. & G.G. Hook
to move toward a more orchestral instrument. Clarke requested that the chorus reeds be
74 Owen, The History of the Organ, 187.
75 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 225.
76 S.L.Huntington & Co. www.slhorgans.com (accessed August 24, 2013).
77 Owen, The History of the Organ, 191.
78 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 209.
79 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 223.
16
as loud as possible, the Great Viola da Gamba be “strong, crisp & incisive,” the Swell
Dolce be soft, and the Viol d’Amour be very delicate.80
Thomas Prentice Sanborn started working for E. & G.G. Hook in 1870 and likely
met William Horatio Clarke while working on the Woburn organ. The Hook company
continued to grow and by 1871 the Hook brothers were producing fifty-two organs a
year. Frank Hastings was promoted that year and became a partner with the Hook
brothers, and the company name was changed to E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings.81 After
George Hook died in 1880 and Elias in 1881, the company was renamed Hook &
Hastings.
While training and working with E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings, Thomas Prentice
Sanborn was said to have become “noted as a fine workman.”82 Evidence of his talents
may be seen in a new form of tremulant he patented on September 20, 1870. A copy of
this patent (No. 107,549) is on file at the Organ Historical Society in Princeton, New
Jersey, and reads:
To all whom it may concern:
Be it known that I, Thomas Prentiss [sic] Sanborn, of Boston, in the county of
Suffolk and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful improvement
in organ-tremulant; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and
exact description of thereof, which will enable others skilled in the art to make
and use the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawing forming part
of this specification.
This invention relates to a new and useful improvement in a device for producing
the tremulous sound of the pipes of the church-organ, and consists in a cylinder
and valve, with a vibrating rod, with balls, or weights thereon, and with a thumb-
screw for regulating the motion of the valve, arranged to operate as hereinafter
more fully described.
In the accompanying drawing –
Figure 1 represents a vertical section of my improved tremulant, taken on the line
x x of fig. 2.,
80 Owen, The History of the Organ, 314.
81 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 217.
82 Friesen, unpublished research.
17
Figure 2 is a top view.
Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts.
A is the cylinder, which may be made of either wood or metal.
B is the top of the cylinder, the under-side of which top is the valve-seat.
C C are openings in the top, for the escape of the air.
D is the valve, and
E is the valve-stem
F is a guide-piece for the lower end of the stem.
G is a regulating-screw, through which the valve-stem works, as seen in fig. 1.
H is a vibrating rod, supported in the pivot-piece
I on the stand J.
K K are balls or weights on the rod, which are made adjustable thereon by means
of screw-threads.
The top end of the valve-stem is connected with this rod at the point L.
M is a spiral spring, which is placed in a recess in the valve, for balancing the
wind pressure.
N is a spring, which bears upon the top of the regulating-screw, and presses
upward on the valve-stem, and limits the motion of the valve.
The vibration of the rod H is regulated by the adjustable balls K K.
The pressure of the air upon the under-side of the valve, as it passes through the
cylinder, causes the vibration and tremulous sound.
The valve is closed against the pressure of the spring M, but the reaction permits
the valve to drop, the effect being not unlike that of water upon the valve of a
hydraulic-ram, producing a concussion, which causes the tremulous sound of the
organ-pipes.
This is a most simple and compact arrangement, sure and uniform in its action,
under all circumstances, whether one or all the stops in the organ are drawn, or a
full chord is played, and is entirely independent of the action of the bellows.
The adjusting arrangement is so perfect that the valve may be rendered as
sensitive as may be desired
Having thus described my invention, I claim as new and desire to secure by
Letters Patent – In combination with an organ-tremulant, the cylinder A, valve d,
seat B, regulating-screw G, and vibrating rod H, with the adjustable balls or
weights K K, when the same are arranged to operate substantially as for the
purposes herein shown and described.83
No known copies of this tremulant have survived to present day, and it is unclear if, and
when, he used this design. On page 25, figure 1c, is a drawing of Sanborn’s tremulant
with his own signature.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn had the opportunity to assist with installations of both
small and large instruments while he was working for E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings. The
83 Sanborn, Patent No. 107,549.
18
firm was noted during 1870–1880 for being capable of accomplishing large installations.
They set a record for the largest instrument by an American builder in 1876 with a three-
manual for Holy Cross Cathedral in Boston, Massachusetts.84 In 1877 they broke this
record with a four-manual, eighty-one register instrument for the Cincinnati Music Hall.85
They continued to produce smaller instruments as well, with their smallest being a fifty-
eight note, one-rank organ.86
A complete opus list of E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings instruments is beyond the
scope and focus of this paper. Two of their organs of different sizes will be presented and
compared in later chapters to instruments by Thomas Prentice Sanborn and William
Horatio Clarke. The first, the 1873 Opus 724 at First Congregational, Wellfleet,
Massachusetts, was a two-manual, fourteen-rank instrument.
First Congregational, Wellfleet, MA87
1873 E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings Op. 724
(Stoplist: Tracker 5:1:1)
GREAT (58 notes)
16' Bourdon (TC)
8' Open Diapason
8' Melodia Treble
8' Melodia Bass
8' Dulciana
4' Octave
2 2/3’ Twelfth
2' Fifteenth
SWELL (58 notes, enclosed)
8' Viola
8' Stopped Diapason Treble
8' Stopped Diapason Bass
84 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 219.
85 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 219.
86 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 219.
87 Organ Historical Society Database, “E & G.G. Hook & Hastings, Op. 724, 1873,” Organ Historical
Society ID 7121, accessed July 12, 2013,
19
4' Harmonic Flute
4' Violina
8' Oboe (treble)
8' Bassoon (bass)
Tremolo
Pedal (27 notes)
16' Bourdon
8' Flute (open wood)
Swell Expression Pedal
Couplers: S-G, S-P, G-P
A brochure from 1881 by E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings includes several examples
of stoplists for two-manual instruments. The First Congregational Church, Wellfleet,
Massachusetts organ closely resembles Size No. 8 from this leaflet:
Size No. 8 Price $2,000
Case – Of appropriate Style and Design, of Walnut, Oak, or Ash woods.
Height, 14 to 18 feet; width, 10 to 12 feet; depth, 7 feet or more.
Front Pipes. – Richly ornamented in gold and colors.
18 Stops, 595 Pipes, viz.: ‒
GREAT ORGAN. Compass C0 to a3.
1. 8 ft. OPEN DIAPASON (largest pipes in front), very
full and bold………………………………………..metal, 58 pipes.
2. 8 “ DULCIANA, delicate………………………………….....................“ 58 “
3. 8 “ MELODIA (stopped bass), rich and mellow…………………...wood, “ 58 “
4. 4 “ OCTAVE, full scale………………………………………………..metal, “ 58 “
5. 3 “ Twelfth, “…………………………………………………………….“ 58 “
6. 2 “ Fifteenth, “………………………………………………………….. “ 58 “
SWELL ORGAN. Compass C0 to a3.
7. 8 ft. VIOLA (or Keraulophon), delicate and crisp……………..metal, 46 pipes
8. 8 “ STOPPED DIAPASON BASS clear and bright….…............wood, “ 12 “
9. 8 “ STOPPED DIAPASON clear and bright….…………………...wood, “ 46 “
10. 4 “ FLUTE, (harmonic), brilliant……………………...………….…..metal, “ 58 “
11. 8 “ OBOE, plaintive .....……………..…………………………….…….“ 46 “
12. 8 “ BASSOON, plaintive……………………………………………….. “ 12 “
PEDAL ORGAN. Compass C1 to d0.
13. 16ft. BOURDON, deep and pervading.……..…...…………….wood, 27 pipes
20
MECHANICAL REGISTERS.
14. SWELL TO GREAT COUPLER.
15. GREAT TO PEDAL COUPLER.
16. SWELL TO PEDAL COUPLER.
17. TREMOLO.
18. BELLOWS SIGNAL.
PEDAL MOVEMENTS.
1. FORTE, COMBINATION, GREAT ORGAN
2. PIANO, COMBINATION, GREAT ORGAN
3. BALANCED SWELL PEDAL88
Several features of the Wellfleet instrument were characteristic of E. & G.G.
Hook & Hastings instruments. First, this organ had a fifty-eight note manual compass and
a twenty-seven note pedal compass. Second, the Swell features two divided stops: the
Stopped Diapason Bass/Stopped Diapason Treble and the Oboe/Bassoon. The Stopped
Diapason Bass likely served as the lowest octave for the 8’ Viola. Third, the Swell
division was a smaller, quieter version of the Great and included the solitary solo stop,
the Oboe. All of these features (with the exception of the fifty-eight note manual
compass) are directly reflected in one of Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s surviving organs,
the 1883 for First Church Evangelical Association, which will be analyzed in detail in
Chapter Four. The 1873 E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings for First Congregational has been
rebuilt twice by the Andover Organ Company, first in 1959 and then in 1996.
A second example of an E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings instrument from the time
period of 1870–1874 is a larger three-manual. The 1871 Opus 571 instrument was built
for the Music Hall in Providence, Rhode Island:
88 The Hook Opus List, 173.
21
Music Hall89
Providence, Rhode Island
E & G.G. Hook & Hastings
Opus 571, 1871, 3 manuals, 33 ranks
GREAT ORGAN
16’ Open Diapason (58 pipes)
8’ Open Diapason (58 pipes)
8’ Doppel Flote (58 pipes, wood)
8’ Viol de Gamba (58 pipes, tin)
4’ Octave (58 pipes)
2 2/3’ Twelfth (58 pipes)
2’ Fifteenth (58 pipes)
Mixture IV (232 pipes)
8’ Trumpet (58 pipes)
SWELL ORGAN
8’ Open Diapason (58 pipes)
8’ Salicional (58 pipes)
8’ Stopped Diapason (58 pipes, wood)
4’ Harmonic Flute (58 pipes)
4’ Violin (58 pipes)
Mixture III (174 pipes)
8’ Cornopean (58 pipes)
8’ Oboe & Bassoon (58 pipes)
8’ Vox Humana (58 pipes)
Tremulant
SOLO ORGAN
8’ Geigen Principal (58 pipes)
8’ Dulciana (58 pipes)
8’ Melodia (58 pipes, wood)
4’ Flute d’ Amour (58 pipes wood & metal)
2’ Piccolo (58 pipes)
8’ Clarinet (58 pipes)
PEDAL ORGAN
16’ Open Diapason (27 pipes, wood)
16’ Bourdon (27 pipes, wood)
8’ Violoncello (27 pipes, wood)
16’ Trombone (27 pipes, wood)
COUPLERS
89 Organ Historical Society Database, “E & G.G. Hook & Hastings, Opus 571, 1871,” Organ Historical
(accessed July 12, 2013).
22
Swell to Great
Solo to Great
Swell to Solo
Great to Pedal
Swell to Pedal
Solo to Pedal.
This instrument features several characteristics of larger organs built by E. &
G.G. Hook & Hastings. All three manual divisions—Great, Swell, and Solo—included at
least one reed stop with an 8’ Trumpet on the Great; an 8’ Cornopean, 8’ Vox Humana,
and 8’ Oboe/Bassoon on the Swell; and an 8’ Clarinet on the Solo. The pedal had one
reed stop at 16’ pitch, the Trombone. The Great, Swell, and Solo manuals all had three
flue stops at 8’ pitch with a principal, flute, and string rank in each division. The Solo and
Swell manuals were noticeably softer than the Great, and both the Great and Swell
divisions had a Mixture. All of these tonal traits are reflected in the design of the 1892
T.P. Sanborn organ for Central Avenue United Methodist, which will be discussed in
Chapter Five.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn clearly flourished while training and working with E. &
G.G. Hook & Hastings, and his own organs reflect their approach to tonal design. The
Opus 571 and Opus 724 E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings organs are two prime examples of
instruments that Thomas Prentice Sanborn would have observed firsthand during his
four-year apprenticeship with the company. The design of these two instruments is
similar to the two extant organs known to have been built by Thomas Prentice Sanborn,
the 1883 two-manual for First Church Evangelical Association and the 1892 three-
manual for Central Avenue United Methodist Church. In addition, the one extant
instrument by William Horatio Clarke, an 1879 two-manual for Sacred Heart of Jesus
Roman Catholic Church in Shelby, Ohio, possesses important Hook similarities and is
23
arguably a close relative of the two surviving Sanborns. These instruments and the
influence of the E. & G.G. Hook and Hastings Company on Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s
organ construction and design will be discussed in later chapters of this document.
Figure 1a: Thomas Prentice Sanborn
Photography Courtesy of Stephen Pinel
24
Figure 1b: Amelia A. York
Photograph Courtesy of Stephen Pinel
25
Figure, 1c:
Sanborn Tremulant, Patent No. 107,549
26
Chapter II. Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s Career from 1874 to 1882: His
Work as Shop Foreman for William Horatio Clarke’s
Organ-building Firm
Following his four-year apprenticeship with E. & G. G. Hook and Hastings, at the
age of fifty-one, Thomas Prentice Sanborn moved to Indianapolis to work for the William
H. Clarke & Kinsley firm in 1874. Clarke’s company existed from 1874 to 1882 and was
one of the first major organ-building firms in Indianapolis. Thomas Prentice Sanborn,
now a well-trained organ builder, served as shop foreman for the company and played a
key role in the construction and tonal design of Clarke’s instruments.
The cash book, day book, and letter books of the William H. Clarke firm are
currently located in the archives of the Indiana Historical Society in Indianapolis. The
cash book commenced on March 11, 1874, presumably the date the William H. Clarke &
Kinsley firm opened for business. The first entry in Clarke’s cash book for Thomas
Prentice Sanborn was in July of 1874. He was given a sum of twenty-four dollars twice
that month as his monthly salary.90 Sanborn started out as a company employee, and by
the 1876 Indianapolis City Directory was listed as the foreman of the Wm. H. Clarke &
Co.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s son, William Marshall Sanborn, was eighteen years
old when the family moved to Indianapolis and was also an organ builder for the Clarke
firm. The first entry in Clarke’s cash book for William Marshall was funding for travel
with William H. Clarke to Chicago, Illinois, in July 1875. William Horatio Clarke wrote
the following letter to William Marshall Sanborn in 1876:
90 Clarke, Cash Book, 11.
27
Young Marshall, We hear good extorts of your behavior at the church in which
we late pride (sic), showing that our influence has its effects. We are considerably
anxious about the organ which will be shipped this week—so that you can have it
Monday morning. Arrange so that while it is being brought to the church three of
you can be unpacking it, and have one, perhaps go to the car and oversee the
unloading so as to save time. You will remember that the c and c# side are
reversed from the usual way….…. I expect to be in Louisville, at the church of
the Messiah, right after dinner on Monday next, so please arrange your own times
to be there after dinner. Have the church folks get a good man for us and we will
go right to work regulating, and tuning. I expect much out of that organ. We shall
get through with it by Thursday noon, I hope, and then get the tuning of the other
by the following Monday. Keep cool in preparation for my return. I will stir you
up as little as possible.91
Carroll Glenwood Sanborn, the first of two sons of Charles Edwin (Thomas
Prentice Sanborn’s brother) also worked for William Horatio Clarke.92 The first entry for
Carroll Glenwood in Clarke’s cash book was February, 1876, compensation for building
pedal chests. The following is a letter composed that year by the William H. Clarke &
Co. and addressed to Carroll G. Sanborn. It is written in response to Carroll Sanborn’s
inquiry into working for the company:
Dear Sir,
Your Letter came to hand a few days since and would have been answered
sooner, but we were expecting such a day to be able to send you the balance of
your work. If you have a job stick to it and if we need you we will report. Please
acknowledge receipt of draft. – Wm. H. Clarke & Co.93
The Sanborn family moved several times while living in Indianapolis. The 1875
Indianapolis City Directory residential section lists a T.P. Sanborn residing at 71 Peru
Avenue, Indianapolis, Indiana, and working as an organ builder for the W. H. Clarke &
Co. In 1876, their residential address was 233 College Avenue, Indianapolis, Indiana, and
in 1877, the Sanborns relocated to 363 Massachusetts Avenue, Indianapolis, Indiana. The
family moved to 233 Bellefontaine, Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1878, where they continued
91 Clarke, Letter book 1876, 248.
92 Sanborn, 451.
93 Clarke, Letter book 1876, 483
28
to reside until 1893, when they moved to 257 Bellefontaine. The following is a list of
entries for Thomas P. Sanborn and William M. Sanborn in the Indianapolis City
Directory residential section from 1875-1882:
1875
Sanborn, Thomas P. organ builder, W. H. Clarke & Co. bds 71 Peru
Avenue
1876
Sanborn, Thomas P., foreman, Wm. H. Clarke & Co., res 233 College
Avenue
Sanborn, Willey, M., organ builder, res 233 College Avenue
1877
Sanborn, Thomas P., organ builder, res 363 Massachusetts Avenue
Sanborn, William M., organ builder, res 363 Massachusetts Avenue
1878
Sanborn, Thomas P., organmaker, Wm. H. Clarke & Co., res 233
Bellefontaine
Sanborn, Willey M., organ tuner, Wm. H. Clarke & Co., res 233
Bellefontaine
1879
Sanborn, Thomas P., organ builder, res 233 Bellefontaine
Sanborn, Wm M., organ builder, res 233 Bellefontaine
1880; 1881
Sanborn, Thomas P., organ builder, res 233 Bellefontaine
Sanborn, Wm. M., organ builder, res 233 Bellefontaine
Thomas Prentice, Carroll Glenwood, and William Marshall Sanborn’s employer,
William Horatio Clarke, was one of the most recognized names in Indiana organ-building
in the 1870s and was considered one of the most prolific organ builders to work in the
Indianapolis area. Clarke was born on March 8, 1840, in Newton, Massachusetts (a
suburb of Boston), and was the son of Horatio and Elvira (Richards) Clarke. Clarke’s
ancestors were descendants of Joseph Clarke, an Englishman who immigrated to New
29
England in 1634. William Horatio was educated in the public high school systems of
Dedham, Massachusetts.
Clarke was born into a musical family and commenced musical instrument
instruction at the age of seven. He began composing at age nine.94 In 1856, at the age of
sixteen, William Horatio Clarke became the organist of the Congregational Church in
Dedham, Massachusetts, and in 1859 he moved to Boston, taking a position as organist at
Berkley Street Congregational Church. Clarke remained at Berkley until 1861, the same
year E. & G.G. Hook and Hastings delivered their Opus 294 to the church.95 In 1861,
William Horatio Clarke moved to Woburn (a Boston suburb) where he became organist
of the First Congregational Church which housed an 1860 E. & G.G. Hook and Hastings
organ.96 These instruments served as a model for Clarke’s own approach to organ
construction and design.
During his time in Woburn, Clarke married Eliza Richardson on December 18,
1861, and also served as a preacher.97 William and Eliza had five sons, all of whom
became musicians. In 1866, he revisited Berkeley Street Congregational in Boston for a
year, and then returned to First Congregational Church in Woburn from 1867 to 1869.
William Horatio Clarke became organist of First Unitarian Church of Woburn in 1869
and influenced the church’s acquisition of an E. & G.G. Hook and Hastings organ, their
three-manual, fifty-one register Opus 553, built in 1870.98
94 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 3.
95 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 3.
96 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 3.
97 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 4.
98 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 4.
30
In 1870, Clarke became interested in organ consulting as well as music education.
He served as professor of organ at Perkins Institute for the Blind in 1870, and in 1871 he
left Woburn, Massachusetts, for Dayton, Ohio, where he became superintendent of
musical instruction for the Dayton public school systems. While in Dayton, he developed
and patented a pitch pipe and a musical tone index.99 The following excerpt is from the
February 1872 issue of The Song Messenger, and includes details about William Horatio
Clarke’s methods of musical instruction:100
We have received from a correspondent in Dayton, Ohio, a very interesting
account of the method of teaching, employed by the new Director in this
department, Mr. William H. Clarke. The lessons are all given first to the teachers,
and then by them to their pupils. Mr. Clarke visits all the rooms, one hundred in
number, every week. No text books are used, but every scholar is provided with a
blank music book made for the purpose (costing 20 cents), and in this are written
all the songs and exercises, and all the explanations, definitions, rules, etc. In the
hands of a live teacher like Mr. Clarke, we can readily see how thorough such a
method might be. We shall look pleasurably for the full explanation of the system
promised.101
It is not known if Clarke had a church job while living in Dayton, Ohio, but a
record of his organ recital on April 11, 1872, was described as “the best organ recital we
have had occasion to chronicle this year.”102 After only one year of residency in Dayton,
Clarke left to study abroad from 1872 to 1873. It is speculated that he traveled to study
organ with famous teachers, observe the latest trends in European organ-building, and
further his study of organ repertoire so he could compete with the virtuosity of other
rising stars. Upon his return to America, Clarke moved to Erie, Pennsylvania, where he
99 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke”, pg. 4.
100 The Song Messenger, 24.
101 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke”, 4.
102 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 10.
31
served as organist for First United Methodist Church and supervisor of contracts for
Derrick & Felgemaker, an organ building firm.103
After one year in Erie, Clarke left for Indianapolis in 1874 and formed his own
organ manufacturing firm. William Horatio Clarke was one of the first organ builders in
Indianapolis. Although his time there was brief, his impact on Indiana organ-building was
significant.
Organ-building in Indiana was in its preliminary stages when William Horatio
Clarke and Thomas Prentice Sanborn arrived in 1874. Indiana had been a state for only
fifty-eight years. On July 13, 1787, the Northwest Ordinance created the Northwest
Territory (Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota).104
Indiana was the nineteenth state to be admitted to the union on December 11, 1816.105 In
the early nineteenth century, a dramatic population increase and industrial expansion on
the east coast led to a movement westward by many farmers and merchants. Indiana had
originally been settled by a variety of Native American tribes; settlers’ earliest primary
occupation was agriculture and later this included transportation and commerce.106
The first center of economy in Indiana was the French city of Vincennes in 1813;
this geographical center moved briefly to Corydon later that year. The state government
relocated in 1821 to Indianapolis, which became the official capital of Indiana.
Indianapolis was selected since it was near the state’s geographic midpoint, had fertile
soil, and a navigable stream, the White River.107 Indiana became known as the
103 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 11.
104 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 15.
105 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 15.
106 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 15.
107 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 15.
32
“Crossroads of America” and Indianapolis became the site of the first Union Station in
1853.108 The National Road from Cumberland, Maryland, to Vandalia, Illinois (now US
40), opened up connections to the Midwest from the East Coast.
Organ builders in Indiana constructed instruments primarily for regional churches.
The first known Indiana organ builder was Joseph Prante (1818-1897). Prante moved to
Indiana in 1852, then Louisville, Kentucky in 1856, and returned to Indiana to open up an
organ-building shop in St. Meinrad in 1857.109 St. Meinrad was a joint monastery and
seminary community in southern Indiana formed in 1854. Prante’s first organ was built
for the Roman Catholic Parish (St. Boniface) in Ferdinand, Indiana.110 He briefly
returned to Louisville in 1858, and moved back to St. Meinrad from 1861–1866, and
constructed several additional instruments, none of which have survived to the present
day.111
Joseph Prante’s son, August (1844–1900), was also an organ builder. He started
out working in Louisville, and moved to St. Meinrad in 1874 building organs for Catholic
parishes in southern Indiana and western Kentucky. Several of his instruments survive,
although none were constructed in Indiana, and all at some point have been rescued. His
1889 organ for St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Owensboro is now in a private
residence in Bowling Green, Kentucky.112 August’s 1892 organ for St. Michael’s Roman
Catholic Church in Madison, Indiana, was purchased by Historic Madison Incorporated
for use as a community center organ.113 In 1899, Prante’s instrument for St. Philip Neri
108 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 15.
109 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 16.
110 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 16.
111 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 15.
112 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 17.
113 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 17.
33
Roman Catholic Church, Louisville, Kentucky, was moved to Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin Mary Roman Catholic Church, Indianapolis, Indiana.114 After Assumption Parish
closed in 1995, the organ was relocated in 1999 to Western Yearly Meetinghouse of
Religious Society of Friends in Plainfield, Indiana.115
Another Indiana organ builder prior to Clarke in Indiana was Adam Schirle
(1814–1862) of Evansville. Schirle was originally a cabinetmaker who moved to the
United States around 1849 from Bavaria.116 James Ulbricht, also an organ builder,
worked in Tell City and Troy, Indiana, around 1861. Originally from Breslau, Prussia, he
started out as a painter in Iowa and moved to Indiana in 1861 to build organs.117
Edmund Giesecke (1845-1928) was a German American who settled in
Evansville in 1872. He had been a member of the Giesecke pipe organ supply firm of
Göttingen, Germany, founded by Carl Giesecke in 1844.118 He migrated to the United
States in 1869 to help Friedrich Gerhardt of Merseburg, Germany, install a two-manual
instrument for Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, St. Louis, Missouri.119 After
moving to Evansville, he partnered with Robert Mueller and later Charles Roth. He
returned to St. Louis in 1884 to work with George Kilgen. Five examples of his
instruments are extant: the 1898 in St. Boniface RC Church, Fulda, Indiana; the 1900 for
Holy Guardian Angels RC Church, Cedar Grove, Indiana; the 1907 for St. Francis Xavier
RC Church, Poseyville, Indiana; an 1880s or 1890s instrument for an unknown
Evansville church, now in Austinville Christian Reformed Church, Austinville, Iowa; and
114 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 17.
115 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 16.
116 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 17.
117 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 17–19.
118 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 19.
119 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 20.
34
an 1872 organ for St. John’s Lutheran Church, Maribel, Wisconsin, now in St. Timothy’s
Lutheran Church, Maumee, Ohio.120
Louis Van Dinter (1851–1932) grew up in a family with a long tradition of organ-
building and immigrated to the United States in 1870.121 He worked for ten years in
Detroit and relocated to Mishawaka, Indiana, in 1884. He was originally a partner with
August J. Erb (1838–1919) under the firm name Erb & Van Dinter Organ and Altar
Factory, but soon was working as a builder on his own.122 He was a prominent builder in
the region, building approximately one hundred fifty organs total for the states of Indiana,
Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Kentucky.123 The following are known extant
instruments by Van Dinter: the 1889 instrument for St. Mary’s RC Church, Louisville,
Kentucky; the 1893 for St. Charles Borromeo RC Church, Peru, Indiana; the 1894 for SS.
Peter & Paul RC Church, Huntington, Indiana; the 1909 instrument for Holy Trinity RC
Church, Chicago, Illinois,124 and a c. 1925 organ for St. Mary’s College in South Bend,
Indiana.
Indianapolis was populated earlier than Chicago, but its organ-building business
did not flourish as quickly. The first pipe organ arrived in 1863, and only three other
organ builders and organ technicians are known to have worked in Indianapolis prior to
1874. The first was Erastus Caswell, who moved to Indianapolis in the early 1870s to
maintain pipe organs. The Western Musical Review lists the following about Mr. Caswell
in its July 1870 issue:
120 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 20.
121 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 23.
122 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 23.
123 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 23–24.
124 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 23.
35
Organ Tuning
A LONG FELT (sic) NEED SUPPLIED – Frequent application from the churches
of our city and others in the State, for a competent tuner and repairer of pipe
organs, has induced us to secure the valuable services of Mr. E. CASWELL,
former tuner and regulator in one of the largest factories in the East. The number
of organs in this city and vicinity will guarantee one good man work the year
round, and as it would be much better and cheaper to secure the services of a local
man (who could look after them any time), we hope to be able to engage the
different organs for him.125
The second organ builder in Indianapolis was Joseph S. Drake. He was involved
in the pipe organ trade in Indianapolis beginning in 1873 and designed and built an organ
with Mr. Caswell in 1873.126 By the year 1876, Drake was living in Chicago as a
musician and organ tuner.
The third Indianapolis organ builder, William Schuelke (1850-1902), was one of
the most famous and prolific organ builders ever to have worked in the state of Indiana.
He was born in West Prussia, trained as an organ builder in Germany, and worked in his
native country before moving to the United States in 1868.127 Schuelke had moved to
Indianapolis, Indiana by 1874, opening up a shop at 141 East Washington Street. He
lived in Indianapolis for only about a year before abruptly relocating to Milwaukee,
Wisconsin. In addition to building organs, he also tuned and maintained instruments in
the Indianapolis area.
William Horatio Clarke was the fourth organ builder to arrive in Indianapolis, and
was considered one of the most successful late nineteenth-century organ builders in
Indiana. Clarke’s company started out as Clarke, Kinsley & Co. in 1874, and was located
at the terminus of Massachusetts Avenue. William Horatio Clarke persuaded both
125 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 28.
126 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 29.
127 Friesen, “Organ Building in Indiana,” 20.
36
Stephen P. Kinsley (1826–95), a voicer for E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings, and Thomas
Prentice Sanborn, an employee of E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings, to join his company.
Kinsley was recruited by reason of his status and reputation as an organ builder; Sanborn
was hired to deal with the internal mechanics of the instruments. Clarke presumably
brought additional chestmakers, action mechanics, cabinet makers, and others from the
east to construct organs. There is no record that anyone from Derrick & Felgemaker
relocated to Indianapolis to work with Clarke, but it is a strong possibility given Clarke’s
prior brief stint in Erie, Pennsylvania, as well as the relative proximity of the two cities.
The Clarke, Kinsley, & Company’s first contract was for Fourth Presbyterian
Church of Indianapolis. Although the stoplist was lost, William Horatio Clarke’s recital
for the instrument’s inauguration was printed in Benham’s September 1874 issue (p.
180):
Mr. Clarke will give an interesting organ recital on the occasion of the exhibition
of the new organ just erected in the Fourth Presbyterian Church in this city, which
will occur during the early part of the month, which we shall take pleasure in
recording in our next number. The following is the programme:
1. Organ Sonata No. 4—Mendelssohn
2. Selections from the Messiah—Handel
3. Transcription from Jeptha—“Waft Her Angels”—Handel
4. Fugue in G minor—Bach
5. Fughetta for 4 hands—Korner
6. Fantasia, exhibiting stops
7. Offertoire in C
8. Overture.
9. Idyl, introducing storm scene.
10. Postludium in E flat—Lefébure Wély128
128 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke”, 17–18.
37
The second contract signed by the firm was for the First Presbyterian Church of
Dayton, Ohio.129 Clarke had worked in Dayton for a year and evidently made connections
to build an organ there. This instrument had a short lifespan at First Presbyterian, as the
church was destroyed by a fire in 1876. A stoplist of the instrument was provided for the
1874 issue of Benham’s Musical Journal.
First Presbyterian Church130
Dayton, Ohio
GREAT MANUALE
16ft. Lieblich Bourdon (61 pipes)
8 ft. Open Diapason (61 pipes)
8 ft. Viola da Gamba (61 pipes)
8 ft. Dulciana (61 pipes)
8 ft. Melodia (61 pipes)
6 ft. Gemshorn Quint (61 pipes)
4 ft. Octave (61 pipes)
4 ft. Flute d’Amour (61 pipes)
3 ft. Octave Quint (61 pipes)
2 ft. Super Octave (61 pipes)
3 rank, Clear Mixture (183 pipes)
8 ft. Cornopaean (61 pipes)
SWELL MANUALE
8 ft. Viola Diapason (61 pipes)
8 ft. Salicional (61 pipes)
8 ft. Gedeckt (61 pipes)
4 ft. Violin (61 pipes)
4 ft. Flute Harmonique (61 pipes)
2 ft. Flageolet (61 pipes)
8 ft. Oboe (61 pipes)
8 ft. Bassoon (lowest octave of Oboe)
PEDALE
16 ft. Open Diapason (27 pipes)
16 ft. Bourdon (27 pipes)
8 ft. Violoncello (27 pipes)
MECHANICAL
129 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 20.
130 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 22–23.
38
Great to Pedale
Swell to Pedale
Swell to Great
Pedale at Octaves
Swell Tremolo
Bellows Signal
Pedal Check
PEDAL MECHANISM
Great Forte Composition.
Great Piano Composition.
Reversible Pedal coupling Great to Pedale.
Adjustable Swell Pedal.
These two instruments were the only two built under the name Clarke, Kinsley,
and Co., since Stephen P. Kinsley had left the firm by November of 1874. Kinsley may
have returned to Boston to work for E. & G.G. Hook and Hastings. He is also recorded as
an employee in the letter books for the Pierce Organ Company in Reading,
Massachusetts.131 The following excerpt from Benham’s Musical Journal from
November 1874, suggests Kinsley left simply because he missed Boston, Massachusetts:
Our old friend S. P. Kinsley has severed his connection with the firm of Clarke,
Kinsley & Co., and returned to his first love, Boston. We regret this change
exceedingly, both for personal and musical reasons, the latter because he has no
rival as an organ pipemaker, and we dislike parting with so excellent a workman.
We trust he will allow us to hear from him from time to time, and tender him our
renewed assurance of esteem.132
A second source, however, suggests Kinsley and Clarke may have had a
confrontation which resulted in Kinsley leaving to return to Boston after only a few
months. An excerpt from a letter from the Organ Historical Society Archives written on
September 8, 1956, to Barbara Owen from F. R. Webber portrays Clarke as an
uncongenial colleague:
131 Pinel, “The Letter books,” 1.
132 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 22.
39
W.H. Clarke, or Horatio Clarke (1840–1913) was a queer fellow. He was a
concert organist of the Thunderstorm-with-sound-effects kind, and he ran around
with a clerical waistcoat and considered himself a clergyman. He was subject to
delusions, one of which was that his father had been a noted cathedral organist in
England. WHC organized an organ firm in Indianapolis, but insisted that his
partners robbed him. He published a whole flock of manuals for the melodeon,
and used the profits to pay his creditors after the failure of the organ factory. He
had a home in Reading, which he called Clairgold Manse, and in it an unfinished
4–100 of his own build. Another of his delusions was that a relative overseas had
left him a fortune. He got together a small congregation somewhat of the
Unitarian kind and preached to them for a time.
After Kinsley’s departure, the company was renamed the William H. Clarke &
Company. William Horatio Clarke had most of his experience in accounting, with very
little practical experience with organ-building. He traveled often to perform recitals and
was only in Indianapolis for four out of the eight years his factory was constructing
organs. Clarke certainly depended on Thomas Prentice Sanborn, his shop foreman, for
leadership and expertise for the organ-building business. In fact, William Horatio Clarke
patented a form of organ action in 1878, but it is believed that Sanborn or another
employee of Clarke’s shop was the actual inventor.
The first contract under the name William H. Clarke & Company was for First
Baptist Church of Indianapolis. Stephen P. Kinsley provided assistance with the
construction of the instrument until the time of his departure, but the organ was officially
completed after he had left the company. The following is a description of the organ
provided in the August 1874 issue of Benham’s Musical Journal:
A LARGE ORGAN
The trustees of the First Baptist Church of this city have, with commendable
musical enterprise, contracted with Messrs. Clarke, Kinsley, & Co., for a very
complete instrument, to be finished in November. It will be the largest organ in
this section of the country. The height of the entire instrument will be thirty-three
feet. The organist will be located on the main floor of the audience room in front
of the pulpit, and the Baptistry will be arched over by the organ case, which will
40
be twelve feet from the pulpit platform to the belt supporting the front pipes. The
action work passes diagonally from the keyboards on each side of the pulpit,
communicating to sixty-one small bellows, called the Pneumatic Action, by which
the different sets of keys are manipulated when coupled together with as much
ease as the piano forte. There will be two sets of large bellows operated by an
hydraulic engine placed in the cellar. The instrument will have three manuals, a
pedale of 30 keys, 52 draw stops, each set of pipes being complete through the
compass of 61 manual keys, and 2,193 pipes. The draw stops are distributed as
follows:
GREAT MANUALE133
16 ft. Full Bourdon (61 pipes)
8 ft. Open Diapason (61 pipes)
8 ft. Viola da Gamba (61 pipes)
8 ft. Doppel Flote (61 pipes)
6 ft. Quinte Flote (61 pipes)
4 ft. Octave (61 pipes)
4 ft. Wald Flute (61 pipes)
3 ft. Nasard (61 pipes)
2 ft. Doublette (61 pipes)
3 rank, Clear Mixture (183 pipes)
8 ft. Cornopaean (61 pipes)
SWELL MANUALE
16 ft. Bourdon Bass (Lowest Octave of the Lieblich Bourdon Treble)
16 ft. Lieblich Bourdon Treble (61 pipes total)
8 ft. Open Diapason (61 pipes)
8 ft. Salicional (61 pipes)
8 ft. Aeoline (61 pipes)
8 ft. Flauto Amabile (61 pipes total)
8 ft. St. Diapason Bass (Lowest octave of Flauto Amabile)
4 ft. Violin (61 pipes)
4 ft. Flute Harmonique (61 pipes)
2 ft. Flageolet (61 pipes)
2 rank, Echo Cornet (122 pipes)
8 ft. Oboe (61 pipes)
8 ft. Bassoon (lowest octave of Oboe)
8 ft. Vox Humana (61 pipes)
CHOIR MANUALE
8 ft. Geigen Principal (61 pipes)
8 ft. Dulciana (61 pipes)
8 ft. Melodia (61 pipes)
8 ft. Gedeckt (61 pipes)
4 ft. Flute D’Amour (61 pipes)
133 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 22-23.
41
4 ft. Fugaro (61 pipes)
2 ft. Piccolo (61 pipes)
8 ft. Clarionet (61 pipes)
PEDALE CLAVIER
16 ft. Open Diapason (30 pipes)
16 ft. Bourdon Sub Bass (30 pipes)
10 2/3 ft. Stopped Quint (30 pipes)
8 ft. Flote (30 pipes)
8 ft. Violoncello (30 pipes)
4 ft. Super Octave (30 pipes)
MECHANICAL
Great to Pedale
Swell to Pedale
Choir to Pedale
Swell to Great
Choir to Great
Choir to Great Sub Octave
Swell to Choir
Choir Tremolo
Swell Tremolo
Pedals at Octaves
Great to Pneumatic Lever
Pedal Check
Hydraulic Engine
PEDAL MOVEMENTS
Great Forte Pedal Composition
Great Piano Pedal Composition
Pedal Forte Pedal Composition
Pedal Piano Pedal Composition
Reversible Coupler Great to Pedal
Adjustable Swell to Pedal
The instrument at First Baptist Church, Indianapolis, was dedicated on Tuesday,
January 12, 1875. Mr. George W. Morgan gave a concert on the organ on Thursday,
April 1, 1875.134 Michael Friesen points out several interesting aspects of the stop list.
For this instrument, the William H. Clarke & Company used French, German, and
American nomenclature, a common characteristic of E. & G.G. Hook and Hastings
134 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 24.
42
instruments and many American organs in the late nineteenth century.135 The organ
included a 5 1/3’ stop on the Great, similar to the stop used for the organ at Fourth
Presbyterian Church, Dayton, Ohio. Other noteworthy features included a Cornopean
instead of a Trumpet on the Great, a pair of 16’ manual stops on the Great and Swell
divisions, a 10 2/3’ stop in the Pedal, and a Choir to Great 16’ coupler, all of which
would have added gravity to the ensemble.
While Thomas Prentice Sanborn was shop foreman, the Wm. H. Clarke &
Company also built a massive organ for Roberts Park United Methodist Church,
Indianapolis, at North Delaware and East Vermont Streets. Roberts Park was formed in
1842 and is the second-oldest Methodist Church in Indianapolis. Interestingly, this
church was linked to the formation of Central United Methodist Church, which housed
the 1892 Sanborn (to be discussed in Chapter 5). In 1854, a mission of Robert’s Park
United Methodist Church formed Seventh Methodist Episcopal Church, which later
became Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church. This church merged with Massachusetts
Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church to form Central Avenue Methodist Episcopal
Church.
Construction of a new building at Roberts Park United Methodist began in 1870
and the new church was dedicated on August 27, 1876. The church had used a reed organ
for worship until a local dentist, Dr. William L. Heiskell, organized a choir and started a
music committee with the goal of installing a new organ.136 William H. Clarke &
Company was selected and the new organ was installed in May, 1876 at a cost of
135 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 24.
136 Schnurr, “Roberts Park,” 160.
43
$10,500.137 It was twenty-three feet wide by fifteen feet deep and enclosed by a black
walnut case displaying silver-colored pipes. The organ hadn2,606 speaking pipes and was
considered to be the largest in the west outside of Chicago.138 On June 12, 1876, Clarke
played the organ as well as conducted the choir for the dedication service.139 This organ
was three manuals and forty-eight ranks and had the following specification:
Wm. H. Clarke & Co. 1876140
3 manuals, 48 ranks
GREAT CLAVIER (Manual II)
16’ Teneroon Montre (61 pipes)
8’ Open Diapason (61 pipes)
8’ Viola da Gamba (61 pipes)
8’ Doppel Flute (61 pipes)
5 1/3 Dominante [sic] (61 pipes)
4’ Octave (61 pipes)
4’ Concert Flute (61 pipes)
2 2/3’ Nazard (61 pipes)
2’ Doblette [sic] (61 pipes)
III Harmonic Mixture (183 pipes)
III Acuta Mixture (183 pipes)
8’ Trombaphone (61 pipes)
CHOIR CLAVIER (Manual I)
8’ Geigen Principal (61 pipes)
8’ Stopped Diapason Bass
8’ Melodia (61 pipes total)
8’ Dulciana (61 pipes)
4’ Celestina (61 pipes)
4’ Flute D’Amour (61 pipes)
2’ Piccolo (61 pipes)
8’ Bassoon (bass for Clarinet, 12 pipes)
8’ Clarinet (49 pipes)
8’ Vox Humana (61 pipes)
Choir Tremolo
SWELL CLAVIER (Manual III, enclosed)
16’ Bourdon Bass & Treble (61 pipes total)
137 Schnurr, “Roberts Park,” 160.
138 Smith, “Roberts Park,” 6.
139 Schnurr, “Roberts Park,” 160.
140 Schnurr, “Roberts Park,” 161.
44
8’ Open Diapason (61 pipes)
8’ Salicional (61 pipes)
8’ Gedeckt Bass & Treble (61 pipes)
4’ Principal (61 pipes)
4’ Violin (61 pipes)
4’ Flute Harmonique (61 pipes)
2 2/3 Gemshorn Quint (61 pipes)
2’ Flageolet (61 pipes)
1 3/5 Tierce (61 pipes)
II Echo Cornet (122 pipes)
16’ Oboe (49 pipes)
8’ Trumpet Bass
8’ Trumpet Treble (61 pipes total)
Swell Tremolo
PEDAL CLAVIER
16’ Open Diapason (30 pipes)
16’ Dolcian [sic] (30 pipes)
10 2/3 Stopped Quintotophone [sic] (30 pipes)
8’ Unison Bass (30 pipes)
8’ Violoncello (30 pipes)
5 1/3’ Octave Quint (30 pipes)
4’ Super Octave (30 pipes)
4’ Flauto (30 pipes)
2’ Clarina [sic] (30 pipes)
16’ Trombone (30 pipes)
COUPLERS
Great to Pedale
Swell to Pedale
Choir to Pedale
Swell to Great
Choir to Great
Swell to Choir
Pedale Separation
ACCESSORIES
Six Combination Pedals
Pedale Piano
Pedale Forte
Swell Piano
Swell Forte
Chorus Forte
Chorus Piano
Great to Pedal Reversible
45
Swell expression shoe
Vox Humana expression shoe
Pedale Check
Motor Major (gas engine)
Motor Minor (bellows signal)
The manual compass was 61 notes and the pedal compass was 30. An interesting
aspect of the Roberts Park organ is Clarke’s use of a variety of mutations with two quints
on the Great, two quints in the Pedal, and a pair of cornets on the Swell, one composé and
the other a II rank (likely softer than the composé). William Horatio Clarke used a review
of the organ by the pastor, board of trustees, and organ committee from Robert’s Park
United Methodist in many of his advertisements:
The large Organ you built for Roberts Park M. E. Church, in this city, does more
than give perfect satisfaction. Its excellencies, as they are developed from Sabbath
to Sabbath, are constant surprise. Its praise is on the lips of all who hear it. It is an
invaluable help to the service of praise, and in leading the congregation in song. It
draws many lovers of music to the sanctuary. In our opinion it has no superior,
and in this judgment several competent critics, who have heard the best
instruments, both in Europe and America, have agreed, and we invite those who
are about to contract for Organs to examine it.
The Clarke organ at Roberts Park United Methodist was replaced with Ernest M.
Skinner’s opus 234 in 1915. Skinner retained the Clarke façade and the remaining
pipework became property of his company.
After four years in Indianapolis, one of the longest stretches of his career residing
in the same location, William Horatio Clarke moved back to Boston in 1878 to become
the organist at Tremont Temple in 1878. Tremont Temple had originally housed the first
organ built in Boston, Hook & Hastings Opus 64 (1845), which was referenced in
Chapter One. The building burned in 1852 and a new and larger instrument was built by
46
Hook & Hastings in 1853, Opus 149, a four-manual, seventy-nine-register instrument.141
This was the organ Clarke played in 1878, just before it was destroyed by another fire in
1879.
Clark then spent a year (1879–1880) organizing musical conventions and serving
as a substitute organist. In June of 1880 he moved to Toronto, Canada, where he was
appointed organist/choirmaster at Jarvis Street Baptist Church and a Professor of Music
at a Toronto college. At Jarvis Street Baptist, he played a large three-manual instrument
built by his own company in 1875. Clarke’s cash book records that he traveled to Toronto
in February of 1875 to construct this instrument. Thomas Prentice Sanborn ventured at
least twice to Toronto to assist with the final construction and maintenance of the organ,
in March of 1876 and in December of 1876.142 William Marshall Sanborn also journeyed
to Toronto in December of 1875. Clarke stayed in Toronto until 1884 and was appointed
sole judge of musical instruments at the Toronto Industrial Exhibition.
In 1884, he returned to Indianapolis and became a music teacher and organist of
Plymouth Congregational Church (by then his organ factory was no longer in
existence).143 Clarke moved to Rochester, New York in 1886, where he was appointed
organist (again) at the First Baptist Church and later returned to Boston in 1888 to
become music teacher and organist at First Congregational Church in Woburn. By the
mid-1880s he was stricken with a progressive arthritic condition, and he lost the use of
his fingers by 1890. He retired from First Congregational in 1890 and suffered a stroke in
141 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 12.
142 Clarke, Cash book, 41, 83, 109.
143 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 13.
47
1892.144 After his stroke, he was an organ consultant, composer and editor, and a member
of Society of Arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Clarke died in Reading,
Massachusetts, of nephritis in December of 1913, at the age of 73.
It is believed that George Ellis, Clarke’s bookkeeper, ran the business in his
absence from 1878–1882. In fact, the William H. Clarke & Co. was listed as George R.
Ellis, Church Organ Manufacturer in the 1881–1882 Indianapolis City Directories.
According to a short biography on George Ellis by Michael Friesen, George Ramey Ellis
was born in 1844, presumably in Ohio. He married Georgianna Raymond (b. December
4, 1846, d. unknown) on May 15, 1867, at her home in Dayton.145 Ellis served as a
member of the Fifty-Ninth Ohio Regiment in the Civil War and was a member of the
Grand Army of the Republic Association.146 He became a resident of Indianapolis in
1870 and originally manufactured boxes.
By 1873, George Ellis was a bookkeeper at a lock manufacturing firm, the George
F. Addams & Company, at the terminus of Massachusetts Avenue. This was where
William Horatio Clarke set up his organ-building workshop, and was likely how Ellis met
Clarke. George Ellis worked for the George F. Adams & Company until 1874 and then
became a bookkeeper for Clarke in 1875.147 He remained with the Clarke firm until it
either closed in 1882, or was bought out by Thomas Prentice Sanborn (the records are
unclear). Ellis became a clerk in 1883 and then a cabinet-maker from 1884 until 1885,
working for Daniel E. Stone, a fancy cabinet manufacturer. Ellis became part owner of
144 Friesen, “William Horatio Clarke,” 14.
145 Friesen, “Ellis,” 1.
146 Friesen, “Ellis,” 1.
147 Friesen, “Ellis,” 1.
48
the Enterprise Foundry and Fence Company in 1889, and in 1892 he became a partner
with William Helfenberger (Ellis & Helfenberger).148
Ellis was a member of Robert’s Park United Methodist Church, which housed the
Clarke organ discussed earlier in this chapter. According to his obituary, he had two
daughters, Marjorie (b. March 6, 1874, d. unknown) and Bertha Raymond (b. August 11,
1880, d. unknown) who were both unmarried when he died. Bertha donated the ledgers of
the Clarke/Ellis organ-building company to the Indiana Historical Society in November
of 1952.149
George Ellis had very little practical organ-building training and experience.
During Clarke’s absence from 1878–1882, Thomas Prentice Sanborn, with the assistance
of his son William Marshall and nephew Carroll Sanborn, assumed primary responsibility
for the design of the instruments. Evidence of this is found in Clarke’s cash book and day
book. In March 1879, Thomas Sanborn traveled for thirteen days to Louisville, Kentucky,
to spend twenty-eight hours on the organ at Church of the Messiah.150 T. P. Sanborn was
also paid for working on the instrument at First Presbyterian Church, Hamilton, Ohio; the
Scottish Rite Lodge, Indianapolis, Indiana; and the First Baptist Church in Shelby, Ohio.
The only surviving and tonally intact instrument by William Horatio Clarke’s
company is an 1879 two-manual, twelve-rank, fourteen-stop instrument located at Sacred
Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic Church, Shelby (Bethlehem), Ohio (known at that time as
148 Friesen, “Ellis,” 1.
149 Friesen, “Ellis,” 1.
150 Clarke, Cash book, 177.
49
Vernon Junction).151 It was built after Clarke had moved to take the position at Tremont
Temple and is in the same town as the organ at First Baptist Church, which Thomas
Prentice Sanborn serviced in 1881. The Sacred Heart organ is a most telling example of
Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s organ-building expertise; it is likely he helped to design,
build, and voice this instrument.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic Church started out as a German
Catholic Parish; in 1852 a red brick church was built. Clarke’s Opus 24 cost $1,100
dollars and arrived at Sacred Heart Church by horse and wagon in December 1879. A
new church was constructed in 1895 and Hy Stahl relocated the organ to the new building
for $80.82. Carl Barckhoff added a new swell shoe during this relocation. The organ was
originally hand-pumped by school children. Opus 24 complemented services for Sacred
Heart until 1960, at which point it had deteriorated and was no longer in working
condition. An electronic instrument was purchased in 1968 to assist congregational
singing.
In the 1970s, plans were made to restore the Clarke, and on May 3, 1980, a
contract was drafted. The John G. Leek Organ Co. of Oberlin, Ohio, subsequently carried
out a complete restoration. Funding for the project was provided by a monetary gift left
by Susanna Sutter, who was a member of the first choir in 1905.152 The refurbished organ
was rededicated on March 22, 1981, with Garth Peacock providing a recital for the
occasion. The organ is listed by the Organ Historical Society as bearing citation number
29. The following is a stop list recorded on the Organ Historical Society webpage:
151 Friesen, “Organ-building in Indiana,” 22.
152 Metzger, Steven, Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, 66.
50
Sacred Heart of Jesus R. C., Shelby, Bethlehem, OH153
1879 W. H. Clarke & Co.
GREAT, (61 Notes)
Open Diapason 8’ (61 spotted metal, slotted 17 zinc basses in case)
Dulciana TC 8' (49, spotted, slotted)
St. Dia. Bass 8' (12 stopped wood)
Melodia TC 8' (49 open wood to top)
Octave 4' (61 spotted, coned 5, zinc basses)
Octave Quint* 2-2/3' (61 common metal, coned)
Super Octave* 2’ (61 common metal, coned)
SWELL, (61 notes)
Bourdon TC 16' (49 stopped wood, arched mouths)
Salicional TC 8' (49 spotted, slotted)
Gedeckt TC 8’ (49 stopped wood, arched mouths, 12 metal trebles)
Unison Bass 8' (12 stopped wood)
Flute Octaviante 4' (61 spotted, coned, arched mouths, 5 zinc basses)
Flageolet 2' (61 spotted, coned, conical arched mouths)
PEDAL, (27 Notes)
Sub Bass 16' (27 stopped wood)
COUPLERS
Sw. to Ped.
Gt. to Ped.
Manual Coupler
TREMELO (sic)
Bellows Signal
Pedal Check
Pedal movements
1. Forte
2. Piano
3. Gt. to Ped. Reversible
* denotes non-original stop label.
153 Organ Historical Society Database, “William Horatio Clarke & Co., Op. 24, 1879,” Organ Historical
Society ID 29, http://database.organsociety.org/SingleOrganDetails.php?OrganID=4256 (accessed July 12,
2013).
51
The design of this instrument is characteristic of many smaller mid-nineteenth
century organs by E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings. As stated earlier, the organ was originally
hand-pumped. (It now has an electric blower. A curtain valve was added to the reservoir
in the late twentieth century and is located outside the organ chamber.) The key and stop
actions are entirely mechanical. All of the pipework in the instrument is located inside a
single swell box, with the exception of the 8’ Diapason on the Great, which is part of the
façade, and the 16’ Sub Bass in the Pedal, located behind the Swell box. This
arrangement is relatively unusual; many of the late nineteenth century organs featured the
Great pipework unenclosed and the Swell pipework enclosed. The organ has two
composition pedals: a Forte Pedal, which engages all of the stops on the Great; and a
Piano Pedal, which disengages all of the stops of the Great except the Dulciana 8’ and
Stopped Diapason 8’; additionally there is a Great to Pedal reversible.
Clarke’s (or Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s) 1879 instrument has a sixty-one note
manual compass and a twenty-seven note pedal compass, a fairly standard range in the
late nineteenth century. The swell-shoe is located all the way to the right of the
pedalboard, which was still common practice for some smaller instruments in the 1870s.
The organ includes a short compass for some of the Swell and Great 8’ ranks. The Great
8’ Dulciana and 8’ Melodia both terminate at tenor c, and the Swell 8’ Salicional and 8’
Gedeckt both have short forty-nine note compasses. Similar to 8’ Open Diapason ranks
on many smaller E & G.G. Hook & Hastings organs, the Clarke Great 8’ Open Diapason
has a full sixty-one note compass.
This organ is strikingly similar to the 1873 E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings organ for
First Congregational, Wellfleet, Massachusetts, that was presented in Chapter One. The
52
Great division of both instruments was based on the 8’ Open Diapason and included an 8’
Melodia, 8’ Dulciana, 4’ Octave, 2 2/3, and 2’. Both instruments had a short compass for
several Great and Swell stops. The Swell division of both organs had an 8’ string, 4’
Harmonic Flute, and Tremolo. The pedalboard of both the E. & G.G. Hook 1873 and the
Clarke 1879 had a twenty-seven note compass, was flat, and controlled a 16’ Bourdon.
One manual 16’, a Bourdon, was incorporated into the design of both instruments.
Several photographs of the Shelby, Ohio, instrument are provided at the end of
this chapter. Figure 2a (on page 54) is a photograph of Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic
Church’s current church building, and figure 2b (on page 55) is the 1879 Clarke in the
balcony of the church. Figure 2c (page 55) is a photograph of the nameplate on the organ
after the restoration in 1981; Figure 2d (page 56) is a picture of the original two-manual
console, and Figure 2e (page 56) is a photo of the flat pedal board with a twenty-seven
note compass. Figure 2f (page 57) is a photograph of the Swell and Great backfall beam;
figure 2g (page 57) is a snapshot of the double rise reservoir; figure 2h (page 58) is a
picture of the Swell roller board; figure 2i (page 59) is a picture of the original pedal
trackers at the manual/pedal backfalls; and figure 2j (page 60) is a photo of the Pedal 16’
Sub Bass, located at the back of the instrument.
Another instrument constructed by Thomas Prentice Sanborn and George R. Ellis
after Clarke left the firm was for Market Street Presbyterian Church, Lima, Ohio. The
organ is no longer extant and no stop list survived. The following is an excerpt from the
Boston Organ Club Newsletter (July–August 1979) taken from The Musical Herald,
Boston, August 1880:
Lima, Ohio—A new organ, built for the Market Street Presbyterian Church, by
George R. Ellis, of Indianapolis (successor to William H. Clarke & Co.), was
53
exhibited June 30, by Mr. F. R. Webb, organist, who was assisted by the choir of
the church. The instrument has two manuals, and their compass is from C C to
C4, sixty-one keys. The compass of the pedal is from C C C to D, twenty-seven
keys. The number of draw stops is twenty-three. The specification, which was
prepared by Dr. William H. Clarke, contained no reed stops, the idea being to get
as much variety as possible with a few stops. Hence the omission of a diapason in
the swell, and the substitution of a bourdon. The dulciana is voiced the softest, the
salicinal (sic) being a soft gamba. At the expense of one of the church trustees,
some reed-stops, oboe-bassoon, and clarinet, were added. A peculiar feature of
the organ is the fact that the entire organ—great manual as well as the swell—
(except the open diapason) is in the swell box. It is a very fine instrument, and
unusually effective. The concert was a success, both financially and artistically.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn had the opportunity to help maintain a wide variety of
instruments while working for Clarke. William H. Clarke’s organ company produced at
least forty organs total with numerous contracts for Indiana’s largest instruments. It
produced both local and regional organs with several for Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and
Illinois, as well as for Toronto, Canada, Iowa, and Massachussetts. The eventual result of
Clarke’s long absence from Indianapolis was that his organ-building business eventually
had no more contracts, and in 1881, the last instrument was completed. The firm either
closed or was bought out by Thomas Prentice Sanborn in 1882.
54
Figure 2a. Sacred Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic Church, Shelby, Ohio (2013)
55
Figure 2b. 1879 W. H. Clarke & Co., Shelby, Ohio
Figure 2c. W.H. Clarke & Co 1879, John G. P. Leek Organ Company, 1881
56
Figure 2d. 1879 W. H. Clarke & Co., Console
Figure 2e. Pedalboard of the 1879 W. H. Clarke, Shelby, Ohio
57
Figure 2f. 1879 W. H. Clarke, Great and Swell stickers, Swell trackers, backfall beam,
and square rail, Opus 24, Great bung-board
Figure 2g. 1879 W. H. Clarke, Double-rise reservoir
58
Figure 2h. 1879 W.H. Clarke, Great roller board
59
Figure 2i. 1879 W. H. Clarke, Original pedal trackers to Manual/Pedal coupler backfalls
60
Figure 2j. 16’ Sub Bass, 1879 W. H. Clarke & Co.,
Sacred Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic Church, Shelby, Ohio
61
Chapter III. Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s Career from 1882 to 1903:
T.P. Sanborn & Son
In 1882, at the age of sixty, Thomas Prentice Sanborn opened an organ-building
business of his own, T.P. Sanborn & Son. This company was the fifth organ-building
firm in Indianapolis, Indiana, and produced approximately thirty-five instruments for area
churches. Sanborn’s twelve-plus years of organ-building experience working with E. &
G.G. Hook & Hastings and William Horatio Clarke aided him in establishing a business
that produced superior quality instruments for nearly two decades.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn presumably purchased the business interests of the
William H. Clarke Company after the company’s dissolution, but Sanborn’s first shop
location was not at the location of Clarke’s old factory (at the terminus of Massachusetts
Avenue). The first entry for the T. P. Sanborn & Sons shop appears in the 1885
Indianapolis City Directory business section under the category, “organ builders,” as the
following: Sanborn, Thomas P. 14 ½ North East Street. The following are listings from
the Indianapolis City Directories (18851887) for this shop location:
1885: Sanborn, Thomas P. 14 ½ N. East
1886: Sanborn, T.P. & Son, 14 ½ N. East
1887: Sanborn, T.P. 14 ½ N. East154
In figures 3a (page 77), 3b (page 78), and 3c (page 79) are three images of the
first location of T.P. Sanborn & Son’s shop. It was on the third floor of the building and
occupied the entire floor except for two small rooms. F. Schirich’s Planing Mill and
Picture Frame Factory was on the first floor, and the Indianapolis Lounge Company
154 Indianapolis, Indiana City Directory, 1885–1887.
62
occupied the entire second floor, as well as a small section of the first floor. The map
description notates that the building had lights, gas, and oil, and the first floor had a night
watchman.
Figure 3d (page 80) is a picture of Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s business journal
advertisement from the 1884–1885 Indiana Polk’s Gazetteer Business Directory. This
advertisement lists Sanborn’s shop at its first location, 14½ North East Street. It
describes their instruments as the “best of musical and mechanical workmanship,
furnished and reasonable prices” and notes that they were “organ builders with twenty
years’ practical experience building the largest organs.” The advertisement lists Prof.
Wm Horatio Clarke, C. H. Weegman, Paul Bahr, and Robert Newland from Indianapolis;
Prof. G. M. Cole from Richmond, Indiana; the Rev. Dr. J. H. Castle from Toronto,
Canada; and the Rt. Rev. Bishop Dudley from Louisville, Kentucky, as references. It also
mentions several organs built under Sanborn’s supervision: Roberts Park M.E. Church
and First Baptist Church, Indianapolis; Jarvis Street Baptist Church, Toronto, Ont.,
Canada; as well one instrument built by T.P. Sanborn & Son for Plymouth Church,
Indianapolis, Indiana. The fact that Thomas Prentice Sanborn included major instruments
constructed by the Clarke factory for this advertisement reemphasizes the hypothesis that,
as the foreman of William H. Clarke & Co., he had a primary role in the engineering and
production of many of the instruments.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s son, William Marshall Sanborn, worked for his father
from 1882 until 1887. The 1885 Indiana Polk’s Gazetteer Business Directory
advertisement and the 1886 Indianapolis City Directory both list the company’s first
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name as T. P. Sanborn & Son. Entries in the residential section of the Indianapolis City
Directory included:
1882–1883:
Sanborn, Thomas P., organ builder, res 233 Bellefontaine
1884:
Sanborn, Thomas P., organ builder, res 233 Bellefontaine
Sanborn, Wm. N, organ builder, res 233 Bellefontaine
1885:
Sanborn, Thomas P., organ builder, res 233 Bellefontaine
Sanborn, Willie N., organ builder, res 233 Bellefontaine
1886:
Sanborn, Thomas P., organ builder, res 233 Bellefontaine
Sanborn, Willey N., organ builder, res 233 Bellefontaine
1898:
Sanborn, Thomas P., organ builder, h 1405 Bellefontaine
Sanborn, Wm M., organ builder, h 1405 Bellefontaine155
For unknown reasons, William Marshall relocated five years after T. P. Sanborn
& Son was established, although evidence suggests he did continue in organ-building. He
left Indianapolis in 1887 and returned briefly for at least a year in 1898, likely to assist
his aging father with the construction of instruments. According to Thomas Prentice
Sanborn’s obituary, William Marshall Sanborn was residing in New York City in 1903.
By the time of the 1910 federal census, he was living in Brattleboro, Windham, Vermont,
with Amelia Sanborn, who was listed as widowed.156 Also listed in William Sanborn’s
household for this census were Chas and Lola Frink, Gerda Emanuelson, Effie Jones,
Shirley Rosis, J. Hall, and Hortense Hall. Ed Boadway confirmed through e-mail
correspondence in May of 2013 that several of these names appear in the Estey Organ
155 Indianapolis, Indiana City Directory, 1882–1889.
156 1910 U. S. Census.
64
Archives, as employees of the company. The Brattleboro Town Directories include the
following entries for William’s Marshall Sanborn and Amelia Sanborn:
1911:
Sanborn, Amelia A., wid, 10 Chapin Street
Willey M., asst. supt E O Co., bds 10 Chapin Street
1913:
Sanborn Amelia A. Mrs, 10 Chapin
Willey M. Asst supt E.O. Co, bds 10 Chapin
1914:
Sanborn, Amelia A. Mrs., bds 5 Oak
Willey M. asst. sup: E O Co, bds 5 Oak157
William Marshall Sanborn became the Assistant Superintendent of Estey by 1911
and was working under Superintendent William E. Haskell (1865–1927). Haskell was a
highly regarded organ builder from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who had trained with the
Roosevelt Pipe Organ Company, moving to Brattleboro in 1901 to become
Superintendent of the Estey Pipe Organ Company.158 According to written
correspondence with John H. Carnahan on August 12, 2013, William and Amelia
Sanborn’s residence was next to William E. Haskell. It can therefore be inferred that
Haskell knew William Sanborn well and hired him to be his assistant at Estey. William
Marshall’s name disappeared from the city directories for Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1916.
The 1930 census lists a William Marshall Sanborn residing in the Bronx, New York.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s nephew, Carroll Glenwood Sanborn, also worked for
T.P. Sanborn & Son.159 Carroll Glenwood, a cabinet-maker, was born on April 12, 1854,
and married Harriet Moulton on June 9, 1877. He died September 29, 1887, at the age of
157 Brattleboro Town Directories, 1911–1914.
158 Pinel, Stephen, “E. & G.G. Hook,” 170.
159 Reynolds, 1.
65
twenty-three. Coincidentally, he died the same year that William Marshall Sanborn left
Indianapolis.
The second location of Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s shop was at 11th and
Martindale Streets. Several sources list this location as the “terminus of Massachusetts
Avenue,” a location which, in the nineteenth century, was very close to 11th and
Martindale. This was originally the location of William Horatio Clarke’s organ factory
and it is probable that Sanborn moved his shop into the same building where Clarke’s
company had been located from 1874 to 1882. Since Sanborn both stayed in Indianapolis
to work with George R. Ellis when Clarke left, and later moved his shop to the original
location of Clarke’s shop, it can be logically inferred that he bought out the business
interests of the firm (in 1882). The following is a list of entries for the second location of
Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s shop from the residential and business sections of the
Indianapolis City Directory:
1889–1991:
Sanborn, Thomas P. Martindale Ave and Belt RR
1892–1896:
Sanborn, Thomas P. Sw Cor Martindale and 11th160
The intersection of Martindale Ave and Belt RR and the corner of Martindale and 11th
both describe the same geographic location in nineteenth-century Indianapolis.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn apparently did not move his household as often after
relocating to 233 Bellefontaine in 1878. The following are entries in the Indianapolis City
Directory’s residential section for Thomas Prentice Sanborn from 1887 until 1903. It is
possible they are all the same geographic location and reflect a change in street
numbering in the late nineteenth century Indianapolis area:
160 Indianapolis, Indiana City Directory, 1889–1896.
66
1887–1892:
Sanborn, Thomas P., organ builder, res 233 Bellefontaine
1893:
Sanborn, Thomas P., organs, 257 Bellefontaine
1894–1897:
Sanborn, Thomas P., 255 Bellefontaine
1898:
Sanborn, Thomas P., organ builder, h 1405 Bellefontaine
Sanborn, Wm M., organ builder, h 1405 Bellefontaine
1899–1903:
Sanborn, Thomas P., organ builder, h 1405 Bellefontaine161
On page 81, figure 3e, is a picture of Sanborn’s second shop location. This picture
is from the Harvey B. Martin photographs collection currently located at the Indiana
Historical Society. Harvey Braken Martin (b. May 24, 1875) was the son of Gary Wyman
Martin and Matilda A. Martin of Indianapolis. He married Attia L. Malott on June 21,
1904. Martin was an amateur photographer, and his main occupation was as an insurance
agent from 1890 to 1930 when he worked for the A. Metzger Agency and Glens Falls
Insurance Company. This photograph features a residential home with the Sanborn shop
in the background. The sign on the shop reads, “T.P. Sanborn Pipe Organ Factory.”
Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s company produced approximately thirty-five
instruments. No known opus list for the firm survived, if one ever existed. There are two
instruments that still exist today, one built in 1883 for First Church Evangelical
Association in Indianapolis and a second built in 1892 for Central United Methodist
Church, Indianapolis. Both of these instruments will be analyzed in Chapters Four and
Five of this document.
161 Indianapolis, Indiana City Directory, 1887–1903.
67
One of Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s first instruments, and quite possibly his Opus
One, was for the Scottish Rite Building in Indianapolis, Indiana, now the Scottish Rite
Cathedral. The Scottish Rite Cathedral, at North Meridian Street between North and
Walnut Streets, was founded in 1865.162 After several years of meeting in different
locations, a committee arranged for two floors of the Baldwin Block to be rented. The
rooms of this building featured an organ by Indianapolis organ builder, William
Schuelke. In the 1880s a growth in membership meant a need for a larger space, and a
committee was formed in 1882 to search for a new location. The trustees purchased the
Townsley and Wiggins “Pork House” property at 29–35 South Pennsylvania Street.163 A
new organ by T. P. Sanborn & Son was built for this location and was “given to the Rite
by a group of members who called themselves the Organ Society of the Rite. It was a fine
$2,700 pipe organ of 1,100 pipes operated by a water motor.”164
In 1909, the Scottish Rite Cathedral relocated again to the Grand Lodge Building
at Illinois and North streets. Six identical tubular-pneumatic organs were built for the
rooms of the building by A. B. Felgemaker.165 The Felgemaker Organ Company was
based in Erie, Pennsylvania, where William Horatio Clarke had worked (1873–1874)
prior to moving to Indianapolis. Although the stoplists for both the Schuelke and Sanborn
organs are no longer in existence, we have the following stoplist for the 1909 A. B.
Felgemaker Opera 1002 through 1007:
GREAT ORGAN (Manual I)
8 Open Diapason (metal, 61 pipes)
8 Melodia (wood, 61 pipes)
8 Dulciana (metal, 61 pipes)
162 Schnurr, “Scottish Rite Cathedral,” 203.
163 Schnurr, “Scottish Rite Cathedral,” 204.
164 Schnurr, “Scottish Rite Cathedral,” 205.
165 Schnurr, “Scottish Rite Cathedral,” 206.
68
4 Octave (metal, 61 pipes)
SWELL ORGAN (Manual II enclosed)
8 Stopped Diapason (wood, 61 pipes)
8 Salicional (metal, 61 pipes)
8 Aeolina (metal, 61 pipes)
4 Flute Harmonique (metal, 61 pipes)
PEDAL ORGAN
16 Bourdon (wood, 30 pipes)
COUPLERS
Great to Pedal
Swell to Pedal
Swell to Great Sub
Swell to Great
Swell to Great Octave
ACCESSORIES
Tremulant
Balanced Swell expression shoe
Bellows Signal
Wind indicator
Pedal movements
Great Forte
Great Piano
Swell Forte
Swell Piano
The building which housed Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s 1882 instrument has since burned
and the instrument is no longer extant. The Scottish Rite Cathedral is now home to the
Skinner Organ Company’s 1929, opus 696.
Joe Roberts, an Indiana organ historian, indicated via written correspondence in
May 2013 that Thomas Prentice Sanborn was also the builder of the organ for Second
Baptist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana. This instrument was rebuilt by the Votteler
Holtkamp Sparling Organ Company of Cleveland, Ohio. During the mid-twentieth
century, it bore the Votteler Holtkamp nameplate. It is not known exactly when this
69
instrument was built, or when it was rebuilt. Roberts noted that it featured Thomas
Prentice Sanborn’s signature bung board clamps (see Chapter Four) and is therefore
attributed to T.P. Sanborn & Son. Unfortunately, the organ was destroyed by a fire in
1993, just one week before the Organ Clearing House was to set to remove it. The
following is the stop list, courtesy of Joe Roberts:
SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH
Indianapolis, Indiana
Thomas Prentice Sanborn
GREAT (61 note compass)
Open Diapason 8’
Melodia 8’
Dulciana 8’
Octave 4’
Fifteenth 2’
Clarionette 8’
SWELL (61 note compass)
Open Diapason 8’
Unison Bass 8’
Stopped Diapason 8’
Salicional 8’
Aeolina 8’
Vox Celeste 8’
Flute Harmonic 4’
Oboe 8’
PEDAL (30 note compass)
Open 16’
Pedal Bourdon 16’
Pedal Octave 8’
Pedal Flute 8’
Swell to Great
Great to Pedal
Swell to Pedal
Swell to Great 4’
Tremolo
Chimes
70
The T. P. Sanborn & Son advertisement for the Indiana Polk’s Gazetteer recorded
that Thomas Prentice Sanborn & Son built an organ for Plymouth Congregational Church
in Indianapolis, Indiana. Plymouth Congregational was the first Congregational church in
Indianapolis. The church was originally located on Meridian Street just north of
Monument Circle from 1859 to 1884, and then relocated to the southeast corner of New
York and Meridian Streets, remaining at this location for sixteen years (1884–1900). The
author of this document believes Sanborn built the instrument for the new building in
1884. In 1900, the Federal Government bought the block occupied by the church and
eight years later Plymouth merged with Mayflower Congregational Church and became
First Congregational Church, moving to the corner of 16th and Delaware Streets.
Unfortunately, the organ no longer exists and a stop list could not be located.
Sanborn designed an instrument for his home church, Mayflower Congregational,
in Indianapolis, where he was a founding member and deacon. Very little is known about
this instrument other than it was his magnum opus (a large three-manual). Thad
Reynolds’s biography of T.P. Sanborn records that Sanborn built instruments for First
Congregational Church and the Zorah Temple in Terre Haute, Indiana, as well as
Memorial Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis, Indiana. Of these instruments, the organ
at Memorial Presbyterian Church is the only instrument for which a stop list still exists.
The three-manual organ at Memorial Presbyterian Church was constructed
sometime during the years 1887–1889 for a cost of $3,200.166 This Sanborn had tracker
action, apparently with pneumatic assist. The Page Company replaced the original
console with a stoptab console in the 1920s and the instrument was removed when the
166 Roberts, Joe, unpublished research.
71
church was razed for construction of Interstate 70 in 1972. A drawing of the keydesk,
archived in the Jesse G. Crane collection at the Indianapolis Public Library, is included in
appendix A of this document. The stoplist was as follows:
MEMORIAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Indianapolis, Indiana
T. P. Sanborn & Son—1887–1889
GREAT (61 note compass)
16’ Open Diapason
8’ Open Diapason
8’ Gamba
8’ Doppel Flute
4’ Octave
4’ Flute d’ Amor
2 2/3 Twelfth
2’ Fifteenth
III Mixture
8’ Trumpet
CHOIR (61 note compass)
8’ Geigen Principal
8’ Dulciana
8’ Concert Flute
4’ Fugara
4’ Flauto Traverso
2’ Piccolo Harmonic
8’ Orchestral Clarinet
SWELL (61 note compass)
8’ Gedeckt
8’ Vox Celeste
8’ Aeoline
8’ Salicional
8’ Quintadena
4’ Wald Flute
4’ Violina
2’ Flautino
III Dolce Cornet
8’ Vox Humana
8’ Cornopaen [sic]
8’ Oboe and Bassoon
Pedal (30 note compass)
72
16’ Open Diapason
16’ Violone
16’ Bourdon
16’ Bourdon Bass
8’ Violin Diapason
8’ Cello
Swell to Pedal
Swell to Great
Swell to Choir
Swell to Choir 4’
Tremolo
Great to Pedal
Great to Pneumatic
Choir to Pedal
Swell to Choir
Choir to Great 16’
Swell P
Swell M
Swell F
Choir P
Choir F
Full Organ
Great to Pedal reversible
Great F
Great M
Great P
According to unpublished research by Joe Roberts, the instrument had no
nameplate or indication of the original builder. For many years, organ builders thought
that the organ was a product of Prante, Odell, or Hutchings. Memorial Presbyterian
Church had a tradition that the organ was built in a “shed” next to the church. Recently, it
was discovered that the church was very near the second location of Thomas Prentice
Sanborn’s shop at the terminus of Massachusetts Avenue. As a result, it is now believed
that this organ was built by Sanborn.
73
Of the few existing stop lists by Sanborn, Memorial Presbyterian is the largest.
The disposition of this organ is very similar to the instrument for Music Hall in
Providence, Rhode Island (Opus 571 by E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings) discussed in
Chapter One. The Great is nearly an exact replica with two exceptions: the organ for
Music Hall had a Mixture IV while the Sanborn had a Mixture III, and the instrument for
Memorial Presbyterian Church included a 4’ flute. The Choir division of Sanborn’s
1887–1889 was almost identical to the Solo division of the Opus 571 E. & G.G. Hook &
Hastings, with the Sanborn instrument including one additional stop, the 4’ Fugara. The
Swell Division of both instruments featured three reed stops: a Cornopean, a divided
Oboe/Bassoon, and a Vox Humana. One contrast between the Swell divisions of these
two instruments was that the Swell of the Music Hall organ was based on an 8’ Open
Diapason while the Swell of the Sanborn organ was based on an 8’ flute. The Pedal
division of the E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings organ had two 16’ flues, an 8’ flue, and a 16’
reed (Posaune), while the Pedal division of the 1887–1889 Sanborn featured four 16’ flue
stops and two 8’ flue stops.
Several remarkable features of the Memorial Presbyterian instrument must be
noted. First, this organ had both the choir and swell shoes in the middle of the pedal
board (the drawings of the 1883 and 1892 instruments which will be discussed in the next
chapters feature the swell shoe to the far right). Second, this instrument featured a Great
to Pneumatic lever, which presumably had the same function as a "Grand Orgue sur la
Machine" on Cavaillé Coll’s instruments. Third, this organ had a total of ten composition
pedals (most likely factory presets) which permitted the organist to swiftly change stops
while playing.
74
In written correspondence from June 22, 2013, Joe Roberts reported that he had
been impressed with the massive chests, supports, and structure of the interior of the
Memorial Presbyterian organ. He also discovered stampings of “G. Mack,” a voicer for
Roosevelt, on the Great 12th low C and the Swell Flautina. This suggests Sanborn may
have purchased some pipework from Roosevelt. Hilborne Roosevelt (1849–1886)
organized the Roosevelt Pipe Organ builders (New York City) in the 1880s with his
brother Frank. They built over 500 organs from 1875–1895 and were renowned for their
tonal design, becoming one of the most distinguished organ building companies in United
States history. Thomas P. Sanborn also purchased pipework from Samuel Pierce of
Reading, Massachusetts. This connection will be discussed in detail in Chapter Four.
Photographs taken by Joe Roberts of Memorial Presbyterian Church and the
Sanborn organ are provided on page 82, figure 3f. The massive organ encasement
features large wood pedal pipes at each end of the case. This was a similar arrangement
to the façade of the 1892 Central Avenue Methodist organ, which will be discussed in
Chapter Five.
In 1893, Sanborn built an organ for First M. E. Church in Noblesville, Indiana.
This instrument had seven-hundred forty-one pipes and comprised thirteen ranks. The
following article about the installation of the 1893 T. P. Sanborn was written for the
Indiana Daily Ledger on March 24, 1893:
T. P. Sanborn, of Indianapolis, the gentleman who made the pipe organ for the
new M. E. church is in the city and Thursday he showed your reporter some of its
grand qualities, but unfortunately for the reporter the instrument’s capacity was
too much for his limited knowledge of such things, yet he could learn something
of it. Its furniture matches the finish of the building to perfection, so that the
appearance is pleasing to the artists’ eye. The instrument has 741 pipes, varying in
size from three-fourths of an inch to sixteen feet. Thus the compass of the
instrument reaches from the pp tone of the picolo (sic) to the thundering bass
75
tones of the bb tuba and all the intervening tones with every quality desirable. It is
a “thing of beauty and a joy forever.” It is a credit to our city and an honor to the
people whose enterprise brought it here. Tomorrow evening it will be dedicated
by rendering a large program of the best music, both vocal and instrumental
interspersed with organ recitals which of themselves are worth more than the
price of admission. Every seat should be filled, in fact every available space
should be filled with extra seats and occupied by persons wiling to show their
appreciation of the efforts of these zealous people to build our beloved city.167
The 1893 Sanborn was substantially replaced by the M. P. Möller Pipe Organ
Company in 1912. The Möller Company was originally from Greencastle, Pennsylvania,
founded in 1875 by Mathias Peter Möller, a Danish organ builder. It relocated to
Hagerstown, Maryland, in April 1881; it closed its doors in 1992. Möller replaced the
1893 Sanborn with a larger tubular pneumatic organ and incorporated the front pipes
from the original T. P. Sanborn & Son into a much larger façade. According to Joe
Roberts, the church relocated in 1969, at which point the pipes were sold and the case of
the instrument was destroyed.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn continued to build organs until 1901, retiring at the age
of seventy-eight. He died on March 13, 1903, in Indianapolis, six months before his
eightieth birthday. His company built approximately thirty-five instruments total. Most
were located in the state of Indiana with a few constructed for other churches in nearby
cities and states. A partial opus list of Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s organs is as follows:
1882 Scottish Rite Temple, Indianapolis, Indiana
1883 First Church Evangelical Association, Indianapolis, Indiana*
1884 Plymouth Congregational, Indianapolis, Indiana
1887–1889 Memorial Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis, Indiana
1892 Central Avenue Methodist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana*
167 Indiana Daily Ledger, March 24 1893, 1.
76
1893 First M. E. Church, Noblesville, Indiana
First Congregational Church, Terre Haute, Indiana
Mayflower Congregational Church, Indianapolis, Indiana
Second Baptist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana
Zorah Temple, Terre Haute, Indiana
*extant organ
Of these instruments, two survive to the present day, the 1883 for First Church
Evangelical Association, Indianapolis, and the 1892 for Central Avenue Methodist
Church, Indianapolis. The 1892 T. P. Sanborn is a rebuild and will be analyzed in
Chapter 5 of this document. Chapter Four will focus on the sole surviving organ by
Thomas Prentice Sanborn in near-original condition, the 1883 for First Church
Evangelical Association.
77
Figure 3a: T.P. Sanborn & Son shop location, 1887 Indianapolis, Indiana City Directory
78
Figure 3b: T.P. Sanborn & Son shop location, 1887 Indianapolis, Indiana City Directory
79
Figure 3c. T. P. Sanborn & Son organ factory description, 1887 Indianapolis, Indiana
City Directory
80
Figure 3d. T. P. Sanborn & Son advertisement in the 1885 Indiana Polk’s Gazetteer
81
Figure 3e. T.P. Sanborn’s second shop (behind the residential house),
Photo courtesy of the INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
82
3f. Photographs of T.P. Sanborn & Son for Memorial Presbyterian Church,
Photo Courtesy of Joe Roberts
83
Chapter IV. The 1883 T.P. Sanborn & Son organ for First Church German
Evangelical Association, Indianapolis, Indiana
Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s sole remaining organ in original condition is the
fourteen-rank, 1883 instrument originally built for First Church Evangelical Association.
This organ has been relocated three times in the last one hundred thirty years and is
surely one of Sanborn’s most traveled instruments. Originally housed in the New York
Street Evangelical Church (now the Lockerbie Central United Methodist Church) of
Indianapolis, Indiana, the 1883 Sanborn was later moved to Immanuel Presbyterian
Church, Indianapolis, during the 1920s.168 In 1989 it was renovated by Goulding & Wood
and relocated to St. Francis Church in Zionsville, Indiana. This1883 instrument is now in
its fourth location at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, Bloomington, Indiana, where
it was restored in 2006 by Michael Rathke, an organ builder then based near Greens Fork,
Indiana. It is currently owned by the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University,
Bloomington, Indiana.
The 1883 Sanborn was contracted for First German Evangelical Church (First
Church Evangelical Association). Originally named Immanuel Church, First German
Evangelical Church first met on June 19, 1855.169 Immanuel Church’s name later
changed to Salem and then First Church Evangelical Association. In the twentieth
century, it was renamed New York Street Methodist Church and finally Lockerbie Square
United Methodist Church. Lockerbie Square United Methodist Church and Central
168 Schnurr, “Lockerbie,” 124.
169 Schnurr, “Lockerbie,” 124.
84
Avenue United Methodist Church merged to form one large church in 2006.170 The
congregation held services in the old building at Central Avenue United Methodist
Church (this church later became known as Old Centrum).171 The 1892 Sanborn housed
at Old Centrum (now the Indiana Landmark’s Center) will be discussed in Chapter 5.
The church building of First German Evangelical was located at the corner of
New York and East streets and was constructed on November 4, 1882, by German
immigrant and architect, Diedrich A. Bohlen.172 This red brick Romanesque building
measured forty-five by seventy-five feet with a ceiling height of twenty-four feet. The
space was formally dedicated on December 30, 1883.173 Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s 1883
two-manual, fourteen-rank mechanical-action instrument was constructed for the
building. An inscription on the swell box of the instrument reads, “December 1883.”174 It
is possible a recital was given at the dedication of the building, but no programs survive.
The organ was originally hand pumped and a water motor was installed in 1903.175 The
following is the specification archived in the Jesse G. Crane Collection at the
Indianapolis Public Library.
FIRST CHURCH EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION
T.P. Sanborn & Son 1883
GREAT (Manual I)
8’ Diapason
8’ Melodia
8’ Stopped Bass
8’ Dulciana
4’ Octave
4’ Flute
170 Schnurr, “Lockerbie,” 124.
171 Schnurr, “Lockerbie,” 124.
172 Schnurr, “Lockerbie,” 124.
173 Schnurr, “Lockerbie,” 124.
174 Schnurr, “Lockerbie,” 124.
175 Schnurr, “Lockerbie,” 124.
85
2’ Super Octave
SWELL (Manual II, enclosed)
16’ Bourdon
8’ Stopped Diapason Treble
8’ Stopped Bass
8’ Salicional
8’ Aeoline
4’ Flute
2’ Piccolo
8’ Oboe (from c0)
8’ Bassoon (bass to 8’ oboe)
PEDAL
16’ Bourdon
Pedal Movements
Great Piano (8’ Dulciana)
Great Forte (full)
Great to Pedal Reversible
Swell expression shoe
The Great manual had a sixty-one note compass; the Swell had a sixty-one note compass;
and the Pedal had a twenty-seven note compass. The swell shoe was originally located at
the far right end of the kick panel and the pedalboard of the instrument was flat.
No inscriptions on the pipework have been found, but several organ building
scholars, most notably Michael Rathke, the 2006 restorer of the 1883 Sanborn, have
attributed much of the pipework to the Pierce Organ Pipe Company in Reading,
Massachusetts. Since in 1883 Sanborn was just starting out in his first location at 14 ½
North East Street, it is likely he initially purchased his metal pipes from suppliers to the
trade.
Samuel Pierce (1819–1895) was the founder of the Pierce Organ Pipe Company.
He was born on June 12, 1819 in Hebron, New Hampshire, and moved to Reading,
86
Massachusetts in 1837.176 While in Reading, he apprenticed with George Badger (b.
1814), and in 1842 he joined the E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings Company in Boston,
Massachusetts.177 Pierce started out as a joiner and became experienced at making and
voicing organ pipes. E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings encouraged Pierce to start his own
independent pipe shop, and in 1846 he returned to Reading and founded a company that
became a leading supplier to the trade by the 1860s.178 Pierce died in Reading on
September 22, 1895. David and Permelia Sears subsequently discovered his company
records in a barn near Reading.179 These letterbooks are now housed at the Organ
Historical Society. Unfortunately, the first letterbook in the collection commences on
October 27, 1884, and therefore the existence of correspondence between Thomas
Prentice Sanborn and Samuel Pierce regarding pipework for the 1883 Sanborn cannot be
verified. A catalogue of pricing for pipework by Samuel Pierce is provided in Appendix
B.
In 1920, the First Church Evangelical Association acquired a new and larger
instrument, op. 2724, built by M.P. Möller. This instrument was a three-manual
electropneumatic-action organ. The contract was signed on June 16, 1919, and the
instrument cost $8,160.180 Hope Leroy Baumgartner, a graduate of the Indianapolis
Conservatory (1912), became organist at First Evangelical in 1909. He was the organ
consultant for the new instrument and played the dedicatory recital. Part of Sanborn’s
176 Pinel, “The Letterbooks,” 1.
177 Pinel, “The Letterbooks,” 1.
178 Pinel, “The Letterbooks,” 1.
179 Pinel, “The Letterbooks,” 1.
180 Schnurr, “Lockerbie,” 124.
87
original black walnut case remained and currently supports a Möller upper façade.181
Möller constructed a console of black walnut to match the woodwork of this case.
In 1920, the 1883 Sanborn was sold to Sutherland Presbyterian Church, which
was located approximately one mile from First Church Evangelical Association at
Twenty-Eighth Street and Guilford Avenue. This church was renamed twice: first as
Immanuel Presbyterian Church and second as its current name, Salem Evangelical
Baptist Church. Although the exact date Sutherland Presbyterian acquired the Sanborn is
unknown, several occurrences lead to the conclusion that the organ was moved circa
1920. Firstly, Sutherland Presbyterian Church was built in 1920 and would have needed
an instrument at that time to lead congregational singing. Secondly, the Möller that
replaced the 1883 Sanborn at First Church Evangelical Association was dedicated in
1920. Finally, magazine pages dating from circa 1920 were used as shims under the
Sanborn slider-stays at Sutherland.182
A photograph, courtesy of Joe Roberts, of the façade at Sutherland Presbyterian
Church (with Sanborn’s original stenciled façade pipes) is provided in figure 4a on page
57. During the 1920s move, the tonal resources of the instrument were updated and
several alterations were made to the structure of the console and façade. The keydesk for
the organ was moved about a foot off center and the swell shoe was relocated near the
center of the key desk. A concave, radiating pedal board was added circa 1920 (the
original 1883 Sanborn featured a flat pedalboard).
Two plausible theories exist as to who moved the 1883 instrument to Sutherland
Presbyterian Church. E-mail correspondence in May 2013 with Thomas Wood, of
181 Schnurr, “Lockerbie,” 124.
182 Gingery, “The Organ,” 1. (Appendix C)
88
Goulding & Wood, Inc., suggests that the work was carried out by Henry Pilcher’s Sons.
The case installed in Sutherland Presbyterian Church was not original to Sanborn, and
Mr. Wood reported that several of the façade pipes had been moved to an offset chest.
These pipes were activated by tubular pneumatic action similar to work exemplified by
Henry Pilcher’s Sons in Louisville, Kentucky.
Henry Pilcher, Sr. was born in Canterbury, England, and apprenticed as an organ
builder in London. In 1832 he arrived in New York and established his business in
Newark, New Jersey. His sons, Henry Pilcher Jr. and William Pilcher II, became organ
builders in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1852, and relocated to Chicago soon thereafter. In
1874, they opened their business in Louisville, Kentucky, and built over 1,800 organs for
area churches. Henry Pilcher’s Sons closed in 1944 and was bought out by Möller.
Pilcher’s Sons did many refurbishments in the Indianapolis area in the early twentieth
century; although we have no actual proof, it remains entirely possible that they were
involved in the 1920 relocation of the 1883 Sanborn.
Michael Rathke suggests that the Sutherland organ may have been relocated by
M. P. Möller. Several tonal modifications that were made to the instrument circa 1920
support this theory. First, the 4’ Flute D’ Amour on the Great was originally a Twelfth.
(A faint pencil inscription of “Twelfth” was found on the stop action. A solitary Twelfth
pipe also survived and will be discussed shortly). The 4’ Flute is clearly of later
construction and is thought to be by Möller.
Second, a Salicional stop, also likely by Möller, was added to the instrument
around the 1920s. The original Salicional for the 1883 organ, much milder than the
attractive but more aggressive new addition, was moved to the rear of the swell chest on a
89
jump slide, and was renamed Aeoline. (The lettering on the drawstop for the Aeoline
rank differs very slightly from that of the other ranks.) The new Möller Salicional thus
joined the original Sanborn Salicional in the Swell, but Sanborn’s old Salicional (now
Aeoline) was smaller in scale than the new Möller Salicional and, with limited space at
the back of the Swell box, fit more easily on a jump slider. The Möller Salicional settled
well into the Aeoline’s former location, as the old Sanborn Salicional had originally been
given more chest space than it needed.
In 1987, Sutherland Presbyterian Church, then known as Immanuel Presbyterian
Church, relocated. Indiana organ historian Joe Roberts, a passionate advocate for old
instruments, heard that Sutherland was contemplating discarding the 1883 Sanborn, and
thus diligently searched for a new home for the instrument. Through Roberts’s
encouragement, Goulding & Wood, an Indianapolis pipe organ company founded in 1980
by John Goulding and Tom Wood, approached the Reverend Sandra Michels, Rector of
St. Francis in the Fields, Zionsville, in late 1987, asking if the church wished to acquire
an historic pipe organ.
After almost seventy years at Sutherland Presbyterian Church, the 1883 Sanborn
was purchased for one dollar by St. Francis in the Fields, Zionsville, Indiana, and
refurbished for $34,000 by the Goulding & Wood Pipe Organ Company.183 St. Francis in
the Fields, Zionsville, was begun as a mission congregation in 1964; construction of a
church building began in 1968.184 The church continued to grow and was admitted as a
parish to the Diocese of Indianapolis in 1994.185 The congregation had been operating its
music program with an electronic organ for several decades before being offered the
183 Swiatek,“ Zionsville Church,” 1.
184 Swiatek,“ Zionsville Church,” 1.
185 Swiatek,“ Zionsville Church,” 1.
90
historic organ from Sutherland Presbyterian Church. The 1883 Sanborn organ made the
twelve-mile journey to become an important part of that church’s music ministry.
The 1883 Sanborn organ had not been in use for at least twelve years prior to
Zionsville’s acquisition of the instrument. It was filthy from fifty years of soot produced
by the coal furnace in Immanuel Presbyterian Church. The instrument’s first move had
been “inexpert and careless. Associated modifications to horizontal tracker runs at that
time—including a sideways shift to fit an awkward chamber configuration—placed
lateral stresses on the action it had never been designed to tolerate. The situation was
compounded by a structurally unstable chamber floor which allowed the key action to sag
gradually over the years until the instrument became essentially one grand cipher.”186
During the 1989 restoration Goulding & Wood provided a new toeboard for the
pedal chest and recovered all the pallets with new felt and leather. They used recycled
wood salvaged from a discarded 1914 Hook & Hastings instrument to repair cracks in the
table tops, and they flooded the key channels with liquid paraffin to prevent cross-
channel runs. The chests of the organ were protected with a new lacquer finish, and the
original double-rise reservoir was releathered. The key action was rebuilt. Both
rollerboards and all backfalls were refurbished, and the old trackers were replaced with
new basswood.187
Goulding & Wood also cleaned and regulated the pipework, providing all open
metal pipes with new tuning sleeves, and all stopped wood pipes with new leather. The
blower was replaced, a new bench was constructed, and the keyboards were cleaned and,
in some places, recovered with fresh ivory. A chamber did not exist at St. Francis in the
186 Rathke, “The 2006 Restoration,” 1.
187 Gingery, “The Organ,” 1.
91
Fields, and therefore, a brand-new case was designed incorporating twenty-one new
polished zinc façade pipes that were purchased from Jacques Stinkens in the Netherlands.
188 Sutherland Presbyterian Church kept the original Sanborn façade; it is unknown
whether these stenciled pipes still exist.
The entire staff of Goulding & Wood assisted in the 1989 restoration of the 1883
Sanborn. Andrew Gingery (now a Project Manager for C.B. Fisk, Inc.) was the primary
restorer of the instrument and Brandon Woods carried out pipe repairs and addressed
voicing needs. Bob Duffy designed and constructed the new case. Figure 4b on page 105
is a picture of the completed instrument in the balcony at Zionsville. Organists from 1987
to 2006 at St. Francis in the Fields Zionsville included Greg Gilsdorf, Ailine Otten,
Dwight Thomas, Don Livingston, Walter Smith, and John Coble. Currently the organist
in residence is Lee Barlow. Most of these musicians are graduates of the Indiana
University Jacobs School of Music, Bloomington, Indiana.
The sanctuary of St. Francis in the Fields was expanded twice during the
seventeen years that the 1883 Sanborn was at this location. By 2006, the congregation
had doubled in size and the sanctuary was twice its original size. The Sanborn was no
longer deemed large enough to fit the needs of the growing congregation. In 2006, the
parish decided to sell the instrument and purchase a II/27 electro-pneumatic instrument
by John-Paul Buzard. This newer organ is nearly twice the size of the 1883 Sanborn.
The 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son was purchased by Indiana University in 2006 and
relocated to St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, Bloomington, Indiana. Figure 4c on
page 106 is a photograph of the 1883 Sanborn in the sanctuary at St. Mark’s United
Methodist Church (located at 100 North State Road 46 Bypass). The church was founded
188 Swiatek,“ Zionsville Church,” 1.
92
in 1954 by Bishop Richard C. Raines as a result of the overcrowding of Fairview United
Methodist Church, Bloomington, and First United Methodist Church, Bloomington. The
Reverend Richard Hamilton was the first minister.189 After holding services for several
years in a funeral home, parishioners broke ground for the church on June 16, 1957.190
The congregation flourished under Reverend Joe Emerson and the church broke ground
for a second time in January of 1964.191 St. Mark’s was heavily involved in campus
ministry to Indiana University and in 1998 they expanded their facilities again, adding a
fellowship hall, classrooms, and offices. These additions were dedicated on March 7,
1999. 192
The first music minister at St. Mark’s was Anna Lee Hamilton, and she was
followed by James Mellor.193 Wallace Hornibrook, an Indiana University professor in the
piano department, was music director from 1967 to 1996 leading one of the largest
graded choir and handbell programs in Indiana, and one that had deep roots in the Indiana
University music circle. Throughout Dr. Hornibrook’s tenure, the church was home to at
least one electronic organ, purchased in 1974.
Indiana University’s acquisition of the 1883 Sanborn instrument was notable for
several reasons. First, it allowed St. Mark’s United Methodist Church the opportunity to
have its first pipe organ. Second, it was the first time the instrument had left the city of
Indianapolis, and the furthest distance it had traveled to date (40 miles).194 Third, it would
now serve not only as a liturgical instrument in worship, but also would be used by
189 Schnurr, “Saint Mark’s,” 28.
190 Schnurr, “Saint Mark’s,” 28.
191 Schnurr, “Saint Mark’s,” 28.
192 Schnurr, “Saint Mark’s,” 28.
193 Schnurr, “Saint Mark’s,” 28.
194 Rathke, “The Restoration,” 1.
93
Indiana University for teaching, recitals, lectures, and workshops. It would become the
first historically rooted instrument at Indiana University and a key part of Indiana’s
American Organ studies curriculum.195 The specification of the instrument in its current
state is as follows:
ST. MARK’S UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Bloomington, Indiana
T. P. Sanborn & Son - 1883
2 Manuals – 14 Ranks
GREAT (Manual I)
8’ Open Diapason (17 zinc basses in façade, remainder common metal, interior,
61 pipes)
8’ Melodia Treble (from c0, pine, 49 pipes)
8’ Unison Bass (stopped pine, 12 pipes)
8’ Dulciana (from c0, spotted metal, 49 pipes)
4’ Octave (4 zinc pipes in façade, remainder spotted metal, interior, 61 pipes)
4’ Flute D’Amour (49 stopped wood, 12 open metal trebles, 61 pipes)
2’ Super Octave (spotted metal, 61 pipes)
SWELL (Manual II, enclosed)
16’ Manual Bourdon (from co, stopped pine, 49 pipes)
8’ Salicional (from co, spotted metal, roller beards, 49 pipes)
8’ Gedeckt Treble (from c0, 37 stopped pine, 12 open common metal trebles, 49
pipes)
8’ Aeoline (from c0, spotted metal without beards, 49 pipes)
8’ Stopped Diapason Bass (stopped pine, 12 pipes)
4’ Flute Harmonic (common metal, 61 pipes)
2’ Flageolet (spotted metal, 61 pipes)
8’ Oboe (from c0, zinc and spotted metal, 49 pipes)
8’ Bassoon (zinc and spotted metal, 12 pipes)
Pedal
16’ Bourdon (stopped pine, 27 pipes)
COUPLERS
Great to Pedal
Swell to Pedal
Swell to Great
ACCESSORIES
Bellows Signal
195 Rathke, “The Restoration,” 1.
94
Great Piano (8’ Dulciana)
Great Forte (full)
Great to Pedal Reversible
Swell expression shoe
The organ had been relocated three times in its 122 years of existence and was a
candidate for significant restoration. Michael Rathke of M.P. Rathke, Inc., then of Greens
Fork, Indiana, was contracted by Indiana University to move and refurbish the instrument
for $25,000. Others involved in the restoration process included Ilze Akerbergs, Viera
Efflerova, Andrew Gingery, John Goulding, Laura Potratz, Walter Smith, and Elaine
Sonnenberg.
The 1883 Sanborn had been known for being a tonally fine organ with a poor
action. The move to Immanuel Presbyterian in the 1920s had featured a “less-than-
meticulous installation, skewed tracker runs, and a sagging building substructure.”196
While the organ was at St. Francis in the Fields, the action was often referred to as stiff,
and numerous parts of the action broke on a regular basis. Michael Rathke, during the
2006 restoration, refurbished the entire key action, replacing many cracked, worn,
misaligned, and broken components and reduced the friction to all of the moving parts of
the action.197
In a letter to Christopher Young on April 18, 2006, provided in Appendix C,
Rathke described the details of the restoration of the instrument’s action. First, he
replaced all manual pallet felt and leather with thinner material. Goulding & Wood had
used 7/32’’ leather, which was the thickest available and is normally used only for Pedal
pallets. The leather was also poorly cut, leaving overhanging felt that rubbed against the
pallet side guide pins and added extra friction. Rathke also reflattened all of the pallets
196 Rathke, “The Restoration,” 1.
197 Rathke, “The Restoration,” 1.
95
and repaired splits in pallet screw eye locations. (The holes for the pulldown eyes had
been drilled too small, causing some splitting of the wood around the screw threads.)
After repairing the cracks, he bored new screw eye root holes next to the previous hole
locations and installed new, longer screw eyes. Michael Rathke also shimmed some of
the pallets and relocated some side guides.198
Pulldown links replaced in 1989 were at varying lengths and were therefore
replaced again in 2006. The pulldown wires were straightened and polished and the
manual pallet springs were realigned and adjusted. The new trackers supplied in 1988
were .065’’ thick, but the slots in the original rollers square arms were only .060’’ thick.
The former were thinned during the 2006 restoration, which eliminated an enormous
amount of friction and stress on the action. The square rail assemblies, which had likely
deteriorated further during their time at Zionsville, were repaired via resecuring the axles
and repairing split wood. The manual keys were reflattened and polished, key tails and
ramps were releathered, the manual coupler pivot rail was repaired, and toeboards were
reshimmed as needed.199
Prior to the installation of air conditioning at Zionsville, the organ was subject to
summer gallery temperatures of over 1000 F which had contributed to stresses on the
action. Unfortunately, the soaring temperatures at Zionsville also caused the paraffin
added by Goulding & Wood in 1989 to liquefy. Rathke painstakingly removed all of the
excess paraffin from the pallet slots and key channels.
Polishing and restorative revoicing the pipework of the instrument was also
accomplished during the 2006 restoration. The five wood ranks in 2006 were essentially
198 Rathke, “Letter,” 2–4.
199 Rathke, “Letter,” 2–4.
96
in their original condition apart from being coated inside with thick beeswax from the
1989 refurbishment (this was removed). “All metal pipework had been fitted with coke
tin tuning sleeves, apparently at the time of the 1920s move; these were replaced with
aluminum in 1988 (sic) and left so in 2006, in large part because of the need for the
instrument to remain playable at A-440.”200
The metal flutes and strings had remained in substantially original condition, but
the principals had had their original “bold nicking crudely rubbed out.. and upper lip
bevels had been sharpened to a knife’s edge, as opposed to the more blunt skiving typical
of the period. Upper/lower lip alignment was erratic, some of which appeared to have
been caused by aggressive reskiving; in terms of speech the diapasons were
uncharacteristically inconsistent, as well as being curiously flat dynamically from bass to
treble.”201 Fortunately, the cutups had not been altered, and a few of the principal pipes
were found untouched, with nicking and windways undisturbed. These pipes, which
appeared to be in virtually original condition, were used as a reference point as Michael
Rathke restoratively revoiced the pipework. As a result of Rathke’s work, the 8' Great
Diapason now reflects 19th century treble-ascendant voicing where the sound was
milder in the bass and became more intense, slightly increasing in dynamic as one played
up the compass.
A second reference point for the voicing done in 2006 was a pipe from the
original Twelfth on the instrument. This pipe is presently installed as an infill pipe in the
Great 4’ Octave (most likely to replace a damaged pipe). In an e-mail correspondence
200 Rathke, “The Restoration,” 1.
201 Rathke, “The Restoration,” 1.
97
with Michael Rathke on June 27, 2013, he mentioned a desire to reconstruct the Twelfth
for the Sanborn someday based on the original pipe currently in use.
Rathke used the Oboe from the 1892 Sanborn as a third point of reference during
the voicing of the 1883 instrument. The 1892 Sanborn’s Oboe was in poor physical
condition in early 2007 and was in serious need of structural attention. Rathke was asked
by Reynolds Associates to clean, repair, and carry out basic physical repairs to the 1892
oboe for the 2007 Organ Historical Society Convention. Luckily, the tongues of the Oboe
of the 1892 appeared to have suffered little apart from the occasional kink. The 1892
Oboe could thus serve as a double-check for the work Rathke was then completing on the
1883 Oboe.
Following the 2006–2007 M. P. Rathke restoration, the 1883 Sanborn was
featured as part of the Organ Historical Society 2007 Convention and recognized as a
historic organ on July 16, 2007. A plaque commemorating the instrument was presented
to Christopher Young, a representative from Indiana University, and Elaine Sonnenberg,
a representative from St. Mark’s United Methodist Church. Following this presentation,
Dr. Young provided a concert for the Organ Historical Society on the 1883 Sanborn.
Christopher Young is currently Professor of Music at the Indiana University Jacobs
School of Music, Bloomington, Indiana, where he teaches applied organ and several
courses for the organ department. Dr. Young was instrumental in the acquisition of the
1883 Sanborn for Indiana University. He provided the following program for the Organ
Historical Society:
Three Pieces for a Chamber Organ (publ. 1842)
Samuel Sebastian Wesley
III. Choral Song [and Fugue]
1810–1876
98
Five Sketches, Opus 32 (publ. 1893)
Horatio Parker
1863–1919
A Quaker Reader (1976) – Ned Rorem
IV. “There Is a Spirit that Delights to Do No Evil…”
b. Richmond, 1923
The King of Instruments (1978)
William Albright
IV. The Flues Blues
b. Gary, 1944, d. 1998
Hymn No. 563: Father, We Thank You
ALBRIGHT
Pièces de fantaisie, 3me Suite, Opus 55 (1927)
Louis Vierne
II. Impromptu
1870–1937
Variations for Organ on Foster’s Melody “Old Folks at Home” (1888) Dudley Buck
1839–1909202
A complete pipework chart by Michael Rathke, with scaling for the 1883
Sanborn, is provided in figure 4d on page 107. Although the organ was originally hand
pumped, the feeder bellows and mechanism had disappeared by the organ’s arrival at
Immanuel Presbyterian; the air supply is currently via the rotary fan blower installed by
Goulding & Wood in 1989. The entire organ is under 3-1/8’’ of wind pressure, which
Rathke believes to be the original 1883 wind pressure. It features a double-rise reservoir
(figure 4e on page 108) with a curtain box. Although this reservoir is original to the
Sanborn, the curtain box was added later by an unknown builder.
The console of the organ is entirely mechanical, including the coupling systems,
and the stop controls are all drawknobs. The swell action is conveyed by stickers to a
square rail, which reorients the motion by ninety degrees. From here, trackers proceed
rearward in a horizontal plane. The next turn in the action occurs at a second square rail
below the swell rollerboard, which in turn spreads the action laterally beneath the swell
202 Hoosier Holiday, 54.
99
pallet box (figure 4f on page 109). The pallet is thus pulled down via a short connecting
link and is returned by the pallet spring. The Great action is via a conventional
arrangement of stickers, splayed backfalls, and a rollerboard. The manual coupling
system is via a simple pivot rail located between the Swell and Great key tails.
The manual windchests of the 1883 Sanborn are slider/pallet chests with common
note channels. The Swell division of the organ is under expression, which is controlled
mechanically as well—the swell shades are moved by a set of linkages (figure 4i on page
112). This instrument includes one ancillary device, a tremulant, which is attached to the
back of the Swell pallet box. Although this tremulant does not match Sanborn’s patented
tremulant, it is likely that it is original to Sanborn.
The organ is comprised of fourteen ranks of pipe work, with the Great division
(manual I) featuring six of these fourteen ranks. All six are various types of flue pipes.
The Open Diapason has sixty-one pipes total, seventeen of which were provided by
Goulding & Wood; they are made of zinc and appear in the façade of the organ. Located
behind the façade, the remainder of this rank is made of common metal. The Open
Diapason has a diameter of 148mm at CC and 70mm at tenor F. According to Michael
Rathke, low CC of the original Sanborn would likely have been closer to 155mm. Both
the Dulciana 8’ and Melodia Treble 8’ ranks have forty-nine pipes total with the twelve
white pine pipes of the stopped Unison Bass providing the lowest octave. This is a feature
common on both William Horatio Clarke and E. & G. G. Hook and Hastings organs. The
Melodia Treble 8’ is made of white pine and is stopped from tenor C to F, with the lowest
pipe measuring 45 X 60 mm in cross-section. The lowest open pipe of the Melodia Treble
measures 45mm X 55 mm.
100
The 4’ Octave features sixty-one pipes total with four zinc pipes in the façade and
the remaining spotted metal pipes inside on the chest. Low CC measures 82mm; the first
inside pipe, EE, measures 76mm. The four façade pipes were provided by Goulding &
Wood during the 1989 refurbishment. Forty-nine of the sixty-one pipes of the Flute D’
Amour (likely an M.P. Möller stop) are stopped pine, while the twelve common metal
treble pipes are open. The lowest pipe of this rank measures 47mm X 57mm. The 2’
Super Octave has sixty-one pipes made of spotted metal and measures 64mm at CC.
On the Swell division (Manual II) of the organ are seven ranks of pipework, with
six ranks of flue pipes and one rank of reed pipes. The Manual 16’ Bourdon is made of
white pine with the lowest note of the forty-nine pipes (C0) measuring 55mm X 75mm.
This rank of pipes utilizes German blocks throughout. German blocks have the windway
cut from the block (as opposed to English blocks, where the windway is cut in the cap).
Another flue rank, the Gedeckt Treble 8’, is made of white pine, as well, with twelve
pipes of the top octave comprised of open common metal. The lowest pipe (tenor C)
measures 43mm X 62mm. All forty-nine pipes of the present Salicional 8’ have roller
beards and are made of spotted metal. As stated earlier, this stop was likely supplied by
M. P. Möller.
The original Sanborn Salicional, now labeled 8’ Aeoline, is comprised of forty-
nine spotted metal pipes without beards and, as indicated previously, is now on a jump
slider at the back of the swell chest. Tenor C of the Aeoline measures 48mm in diameter.
The Stopped Diapason Bass 8’ pipes have German blocks and are made of white pine.
They serve as the lowest octave for the Gedeckt Treble, Salicional, and Aeoline ranks.
The 4’ Flute Harmonic has sixty-one pipes of common metal with the lowest measuring
101
59mm and the first harmonic pipe at 40mm. The Flagolet 2’ consists of sixty-one pipes of
spotted metal with the lowest measuring 44mm.
The sole reed pipe on the organ is the Oboe/Bassoon: the Oboe drawstop moves
the slider into place for the top forty-nine pipes of the rank while the Bassoon knob
controls the lowest octave. This arrangement offered a number of registrational
possibilities, among them the playing of a melody on the Oboe and accompanying it with
the lowest octave of another rank of pipes. The low and midrange pipes of this rank have
zinc stems and spotted metal bells; the top octave comprises twelve open flues of spotted
metal. For the Oboe rank, tenor C measures 64mm at the bell top and 26.5mm at the
bell/stem joint, and the lowest note of the Bassoon rank measures 90mm at the bell top
and 35mm at the bell/stem joint.
Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s 1883 organ has one pedal stop, the 16’ Bourdon,
made of white pine at a scale of 124mm X 206mm. The pedalboard, although an early
form of concave/radiating is not original and is not AGO standard, with twenty-seven
notes total. Three unison couplers are provided: Swell to Great, Great to Pedal, and Swell
to Pedal. There are also three composition pedals: the Piano pedal which draws the 8’
Dulciana and Unison Bass only, the Forte Pedal which engages the Full Great, and the
Great to Pedal reversible (figure 4j on page 113). These composition pedals were
predecessors to the combination action and were used in smaller instruments by William
Horatio Clarke and E. & G. G. Hook and Hastings.
Michael Rathke provided the following information regarding the bungboard
latches used for the 1883 Sanborn via e-mail on September 21, 2013:
Sanborn used two styles of bungboard latches in his 1883 instrument. One,
applied to the Great only, consisted of simple bar latches made from thin sheet
102
steel & anchored by ordinary wood screws. The Swell and Pedal utilized
Sanborn's unique trademark bung latches, presumably of his own design, which
acted in the manner of a cam clamp. The advantage of the trademark latches
was that they were much faster to remove and refasten, requiring no tools apart
from the organ builder's own hands.
Figure 4n on page 117 is a sketch by Michael Rathke of the two different types of
bungboard latches found in the 1883 Sanborn. Surviving physical evidence and
photographs suggest that Sanborn used Clarke’s simple latch design in his earliest
instruments, gradually introducing his own signature latches where it made sense to do
so. (Rathke also points out that although the signature cam latch was a decided
improvement on the simple bar latch, it was also a bit thicker and thus required slightly
more space. This would explain why Sanborn retained the old, simple style in select
instances, even on his later instruments.) The 1879 W.H.Clarke instrument employs the
same style bungboard clamps as the Great of the Sanborn 1883 (figure 4k on page 114).
The signature bungboard latches utilized for the Pedal and Swell windchests of the 1883
Sanborn (figure 4l on page 115 and figure 4m on page 116) were also found in the 1887–
1889 organ for Memorial Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis, Indiana, and the 1892
instrument for Central Avenue United Methodist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana.
The 1883 instrument is similar in disposition and tonal design to the 1873 E. &.
G.G. Hook & Hastings, Op. 724 for First Congregational, Wellfleet, Massachusetts and
the 1879 W.H. Clarke & Co. for Sacred Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic Church, Shelby,
Ohio. The 1883 Great is based on the 8’ Open Diapason, and its original Great division
(with the Twelfth) was nearly a carbon copy of both the 1879 Clarke and 1873 E. & G.G.
Hook organs. The 1883 organ features several tenor-c stops with a common bass: the
Melodia Treble 8’ and Dulciana 8’ on the Great share a common bass, the Unison Bass
103
8’, for the lowest octave. The 1879 W.H. Clarke follows the same practice for these
stops. On the Swell division of the Sanborn, the Bassoon 8’ serves as the lowest octave
for the Oboe 8’; the Stopped Diapason Bass serves all Swell 8’ flue stops. Similar to the
1879 Clarke, the 1883 has a sixty-one note manual compass, a flat pedalboard
(originally) with a twenty-seven note compass, one pedal stop (a 16’ Bourdon), and three
compositional pedals. The swell shoe for the 1883 Sanborn was originally located to the
right of the pedalboard, similar to the Swell shoe placement on the 1879 W. H. Clarke.
The cabinetry and internal mechanics of the 1883 Sanborn clearly resemble the
1879 W. H. Clarke & Co., for Shelby, Ohio. First, the Great backfall assemblies are
nearly identical in construction. Figure 2f (page 57) is a photograph of these levers in the
Clarke instrument and figure 4h (page 111) is a picture of the same mechanism in the
1883 Sanborn. The rollerboard for both organs is also similar (figure 2h, page 58; 1879
Clarke, figure 4f & 4g, pages 109 and 110; 1883 Sanborn) and the cabinetry on the
consoles of both instruments is similar in style, especially the music rack (figure 2d, page
56, 1879 Clarke; figure 4c, page 106, 1883 Sanborn).
Many of the stops on the 1879 Clarke and the 1883 Sanborn correspond to one
another in tone. The 8’ Open Diapason on the Great of both instruments has a mellow,
refined timbre and increases in dynamic with treble ascendency. The 4’ Octave and 2’
Super Octave have a brighter thinner quality than the Open Diapason. On both the 1879
W. H. Clarke and the 1883 Sanborn, the Dulciana 8’ has a light stringy sound and the 8’
Melodia has a beautiful, pure flute tone. The Swell divisions of the 1879 Clarke and 1883
Sanborn are similar in clarity to the Great, but at a softer dynamic. All of the ranks of
104
both instruments blend exceptionally well, producing a full chorus with an unusually
balanced sound
The 1883 Sanborn is the sole remaining T.P. Sanborn & Sons organ in near-
original condition. It features many stylistic traits of instruments by the organ builders
Thomas Sanborn studied with and worked for: E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings and William
Horatio Clarke. In particular, the disposition, construction, and tonal design of the 1883
Sanborn are reminiscent of the 1879 W. H. Clarke. This clearly solidifies the hypothesis
that the 1879 W. H. Clarke was built under T. P. Sanborn’s direct supervision; it is
therefore an early example of Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s organ output.
Figure 4a. 1883 Sanborn & Son at Immanuel Presbyterian Church,
Indianapolis, Indiana
Photograph Courtesy of Joe Roberts
105
Figure 4b. 1883 Sanborn & Son at St. Francis in the Fields Episcopal Church
106
Figure 4c. T. P. Sanborn & Son, St. Mark’s United Methodist Church
Photograph Courtesy of William T. Van Pelt
107
Figure 4d. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son, pipe scalings,
Courtesy of Michael Rathke
Pitch # of
Pipes
Material
Scale in millimeters
(I.D.)--measured at
lowest note in stop
Comments
GREAT
Open Diapason 8'
61
zinc & common
metal
148 at low CC; 70 at
tenor F
17 new zinc by G&W
in façade, rest interior
CM
Melodia Treble
(TC)
8'
49
white pine
45 X 55 at tenor F
(open)
45 X 60 at tenor C
(stopped)
Dulciana (TC)
8'
49
spotted metal
58
Unison Bass
8'
12
stopped white pine
72 X 96
Octave
4'
61
zinc & spotted
metal
82 at low CC; 76 at
low EE
4 new zinc by G&W in
façade, rest interior
SM
Flute D'Amour
4'
61
49 stopped pine and
12 open CM
47 X 57
Lovely but not
original - S/A backfall
marked "Twelfth"
Super Octave
2'
62
spotted metal
54 at low C
SWELL
Manual (sic)
Bourdon (TC)
16'
49
stopped white pine
56 x 75
German blocks
Gedeckt Treble
(TC)
8'
49
stopped wh. pine w.
12 CM trebles
43 x 62
German blocks to
tenor E; remainder
sunken English blocks
Salicional (TC) 8'
49
spotted metal w.
roller beards
50
not original; added
via jump slide at back
of SW chest
Aeoline (TC)
8'
49
spotted metal
without beards
48
Stopped
Diapason Bass
8'
12
stopped white pine
72 x 97
German blocks
Flute Harmonic 4'
61
common metal
59
40mm 1st harmonic
pipe
Flagolet
2'
61
spotted metal
44
Oboe (TC)
8'
49
zinc stems, SM
bells; 12 SM trebles
bell top = 64; bell/stem
joint = 26.5
Top octave flue pipes
Bassoon
8'
12
zinc stems, SM
bells
bell top = 90; bell/stem
joint = 35
Oboe construction
(double taper)
Tremolo
connected to SW
pallet box
PEDAL
Pedal (sic)
Bourdon
16'
27
stopped white pine
124 X 206
Three unison couplers
Bellows Signal (knob only)
Great Piano composition pedal (draws 8' Dulciana and Unison Bass)
Great Forte composition pedal (draws full Great)
Great to Pedal reversible pedal
Swell expression shoe (originally located at RH end of pedalboard)
108
Figure 4e. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son
double-rise reservoir
Photograph Courtesy of Michael Rathke
109
Figure 4f. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son,
Swell roller board
Photograph Courtesy of Michael Rathke
110
Figure 4g. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son,
Swell and Great Roller boards, square rails
Photograph Courtesy of Michael Rathke
111
Figure 4h. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son,
Great backfall assembly, Swell trackers (horizontal)
Photograph Courtesy of Michael Rathke
112
Figure 4i. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son,
Swell shades and trace
Photograph Courtesy of Michael Rathke
113
Figure 4j. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son,
pedalboard, composition pedals, Great to Pedal reversible, Swell shoe
Photograph Courtesy of Michael Rathke
114
Figure 4k. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son
Great bungboard clamp
Photograph Courtesy of Michael Rathke
115
Figure 4l. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son
trademark bungboard clamp (Pedal chest)
Photograph Courtesy of Michael Rathke
116
Figure 4m. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son
trademark bungboard clamp (Swell chest)
Photograph Courtesy of Michael Rathke
117
Figure 4n. 1883 T. P. Sanborn & Son
bungboard clamps
Drawing Courtesy of Michael Rathke
118
Chapter V. The 1892 T.P. Sanborn & Son organ for Central Avenue
United Methodist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana
Of the two extant instruments by Thomas Prentice Sanborn, the 1883 Sanborn is
regarded as the only instrument that survives close to its original state. One other organ,
the 1892 Sanborn, resides in the Cook Grand Hall of the Indiana Landmarks Center at
Central Avenue and East Twelfth Street, Indianapolis, Indiana. It is substantially intact
tonally, but the original action and winding have been completely replaced utilizing non-
original technology; thus this instrument is considered a rebuild.
The Indiana Landmarks Center was originally Central United Methodist Church.
On May 17, 1854, sixteen members of Robert’s Park United Methodist Church organized
Seventh Methodist Episcopal Church.203 In 1856, a church was built at the corner of
North and Alabama Streets, and it was renamed North Street Methodist Episcopal
Church. A larger building was built on the same property in 1855, dedicated by Rev.
T.M. Eddy in December, and given the name Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church.204
Trinity purchased its first organ from Wm. H. Clarke & Co. in November of 1874 for
$850.205
In 1870, a new congregation, Massachusetts Avenue Methodist Episcopal,
formed, eight blocks from Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church. The two churches united
in 1876 and moved north to Butler Street (now Twelfth Street) to form Central Avenue
United Methodist. The new congregation held its first service on June 17, 1877.206
203 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 146.
204 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 146.
205 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 146.
206 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 146.
119
William H. Clarke and Co.’s organ was moved to the new building that year for a cost of
$266.09.207
After a tornado caused serious damage to the building on May 4, 1879, talks
began for the building of a new church. A committee was formed and the cornerstone
was laid on September 12, 1891.208 The Romanesque building with red brick and Indiana
limestone was dedicated by Bishop Thomas Bowman on June 5, 1892 (figure 5a, on page
139).209 The auditorium plan building featured an eight thousand square foot room that
seated one thousand three hundred people.210 By the 1920s, Central Avenue United
Methodist Church was the largest Methodist Church in the state of Indiana.
The funds to construct Thomas P. Sanborn’s 1892 instrument were raised by a
Merchant’s Carnival on March 31 and April 1, 1891.211 “One hundred and fifty costumed
ladies participated in a grand march and battalion drill, each young lady representing an
Indianapolis business.”212 The newspaper coverage of this event did not specify that the
organ was by Thomas Prentice Sanborn, but all other evidence leads to this conclusion.
Thaddeus B. Reynolds of Reynolds Organ Associates found the initials “TPS’S”
inscribed on the mouths of several pipes, which was an abbreviation for “Thomas
Prentice Sanborn and Son.”213 According to Reynolds’s report to the Old Centrum
Foundation in 2004, C0 of the Swell 8’ Violin Diapason was inscribed with Sanborn’s
full name. Two pipe inscriptions are included in Figure 5b and 5c (pages 140 and 141).
207 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 146.
208 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 147.
209 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 146.
210 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 146.
211 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 146.
212 Schnurr. “Old Centrum,” 148.
213 Schnurr. “Old Centrum,” 148.
120
The surviving 1910 photograph of the instrument (figure 2d, page 142) shows the
keydesk was centered at the base of the case and was not detached. It may have been
slightly projecting, a common practice in organ building in the 1890s. The 1892 Sanborn
originally had a water motor or steam motor. On March 24, 1909, a Kinetic blower (fan
blower) was purchased and shipped to Central Avenue United Methodist.214 A stop list of
this instrument at Central United Methodist Church from the Jesse G. Crane Collection in
the Indianapolis Public Library is as follows:
CENTRAL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH215
Indianapolis, Indiana
T. P. Sanborn—1892
GREAT (Manual I)
16’ Teneroon (metal open diapason)
8’ Diapason (scale 43)
8’ Melodia
8’ Doppel Flute
8’ Gamba
8’ Dulciana
4’ Octave (scale 58)
4’ Concert Flute (a Doppelflöte)
2 2/3 Octave Quint
2 Super Octave (scale 72)
[III] Mixture
8’ Trumpet
8’ Clarinet
SWELL (Manual II, enclosed)
16’ Bourdon Bass
16’ Bourdon Treble
8’ Violin Diapason
8’ Gedect Treble
8’ Unison Bass
8’ Salicional
8’ Aeoline
4’ Principal
4’ Violina
4’ Flute
214 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 146.
215 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 148.
121
2’ Flageolet (harmonic)
[III] Mixture
8’ Oboe (from co)
8’ Bassoon (bass for 8’ Oboe)
8’ Vox Humana
Tremulant
PEDAL
16’ Diapason
16’ Bourdon
8’ Cello
COUPLERS
Great to Pedal
Swell to Pedal
Swell to Great
PEDAL MOVEMENTS
Swell expression shoe
Great to Pedal reversible
Great Convertible 1 (with setter pedal)
Great Convertible 2 (with setter pedal)
Great P
Great F
Swell Convertible 1 (with setter pedal)
Swell Convertible 2 (with setter pedal)
Swell F
Full Organ
ACCESSORIES
Bellows Signal
Pedal Check
Great Mixture composition
CC-c1 1 1/3, 1, 1/2
c#1-c2 2, 1 1/3, 1
c#2-c4 5 1/3, 2, 2
Swell Mixture composition
CC-c#0 2, 1 1/3, 1
d0-c2
2 2/3, 2, 1
c#2-c3 2 2/3, 2, 1
c#3-c4 4, 4, 2 2/3
Quints with arched mouths.
122
The organ featured a very large double-rise reservoir, which no longer exists. Its
console was entirely mechanical, including the coupling systems, with pneumatic assists
applied to the bottom twenty-five notes of each windchest. The pneumatic assists
presumably utilized the valve-mechanism design of Sanborn’s second patent, which was
signed on December 15, 1892. Thaddeus Reynold’s report to the Old Centrum
Foundation in 2004 regarding this valve-mechanism design reads:
In December 1891, as he was building the Central Avenue organ, Sanborn applied
for and was granted his second patent, No. 394,428, for a “Valve Mechanism.”
This invention was actually an assist pneumatic mounted inside the pallet box to
relieve the heavy keyboard resistance that was a problem in tracker organs of the
period. This problem, which was most evident in the bottom of the keyboard
compass, was caused by the relatively large size of the pallets (the Great chest at
Central contains thirteen stops). The pneumatic assist mechanism essentially
neutralized the effects of the internal chest pressure against the pallets, greatly
lessening the finger pressure needed to move them. Sanborn applied these assists
to the bottom 25 notes of each of his main windchests at Central Avenue, as
evidenced by borings for these assists that still exist.216
This patent, no. 394,423, was filed on May 28, 1891. The text accompanying the patent
was as follows:
To all whom it may concern:
Be it known: that I, THOMAS P. SANBORN, of Indianapolis, county of
Marion, and State of Indiana, have invented certain new and useful improvements
in Organ-Valve Mechanism; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full,
clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying
drawing, in which like letters refer to like parts.
My invention relates to improvements in the construction of mechanism
for operating organ-valves; and its object is to equalize and balance the pressure
upon the valve by means of an auxiliary air-chamber and bellows, so that the
valve will respond easily and readily to a slight touch upon the key, and will be
understood from the following description:
The drawing represents a cross-section through the organ on the central
line of the auxiliary air-chamber, the key and lever below being in
elevation.
216 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 149.
123
In detail, 1 is the casing of the organ; 2, the principal wind-chest; 3, the
pipes, and 4 the sliders for admitting air from the wind-chest into the
pipes.
5 is the valve at the bottom of the main chest, which is partly controlled by
the spring 6, connected at one side.
8 are pins for guiding the movement of the valve, one of these being in a
slot 7 at one end of the valve.
9 is a screw-pin connected to the valve 5 for adjusting its movement and
secured below to a metal piece hinged at 10 to a block fastened upon the
top of the collapsible bellows 13.
11 is an auxiliary air-chamber connected to the main chest directly below
the valve 5, having an air-opening 12.
13 is an auxiliary bellows having at one end a guide-block 14, which
works on a pin 15, for steadying the bellows during its vertical movement.
16 is a valve-rod having a valve 17 on its upper end, which closes an
opening in the top of the bellows 13 and passing down through an opening
19 in the bottom of the air-chamber, and 18 is a valve for closing such
opening.
20 is a spring whose tension bears against the under-side of the valve 18,
normally keeping it closed.
21 is a link which connects the rod 16 to a staple 22, which passes through
the end of a rocking lever 23, pivoted at 24 to the upright 25.
26 is a screw-pin entering the opposite end of the lever 23 and resting
below on the lever 27, pivoted at 28 to the frame-work, having a key 30 on
its outer end and supported from beneath by a pin 29.
My invention consists in providing the auxiliary air-chamber 11 and in
locating therein an auxiliary collapsible bellows 13, provided with a valve
rod 16 and the valves 17 and 18, and in connecting this valve rod directly
to the lever 23 below, providing also a spring 20 for controlling the valve
movement.
I will now explain the operation of my device. When the key 30 is
depressed, the opposite end of the lever 27 is raised, and the outer end of
the lever 23 is tilted downward, opening the valve 18 and closing the valve
17. The air in the bellows 13 will then escape through the opening 19, and
the pressure of the air in the chest 11, pressing downward upon the top of
124
the bellows, collapses the same, thereby relieving the pressure upon the
under side of the valve 5, and as the bellows falls it pulls down the valve 5
by means of the pin 9 against the air-pressure in chamber 11 and against
the weak pressure of the spring 6, and the air from the auxiliary chest 11
will then enter into the main chest 12 through the open valve and to the
pipes of the organ. The opening of the valve 5 is therefore easy and
gradual and by no means abrupt or violent, and when the pressure upon
the key 30 is relieved a reverse action takes place, namely: the spring 20
returns the valve 18 to its seat, closing the opening 19 and at the same time
opening the valve 17, allowing the opening below the valve 17 into the
bellows 13, and the pressure of the air in the bellows being equal to that in
the chest 11 the force of the spring 6 will return the valve 5 to its seat with
ease, and the air is thereby cut off from the organ-pipe.
In my device upon touching the key the valve 18 is opened, allowing the
air in the bellows 13 to escape, closing the valve 17, and the air rushing
out from the bellows the latter will collapse, and the pressure of the air in
the chest 11 upon the top of the bellows will tend to draw the valve 5 from
its seat, even against the pressure of the spring 6. The pressure, therefore,
upon the valve 5 is overcome, not by an equivalent pressure upon the key,
but through the escape of the air from the auxiliary bellows, which opens
the valve by the pin 9. It will thus be seen that the pull upon the valve is
positive whenever the key is pressed, and the valve will be opened
whether the bellows is tight or not. This pin 9, which connects the bellows
13 to the valve 5, is threaded above, so that it furnishes a means of
adjusting the connection between the bellows and valve, and this
adjustment may be made so delicate that a very slight pressure upon the
key will operate the auxiliary bellows and its valve mechanism and open
the main valve 5, admitting the air-blast to the organ-pipe.
What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is the
following:
1. In an organ, an auxiliary air-chamber 11, located below the main valve
5, and an auxiliary bellows in such air-chamber, having openings in it
above and below, alternately closed and opened by the spring-
controlled valves 17 and 18, mounted on the rod 16, connected directly
to the key-controlled lever 23, substantially as shown and described.
2. In an organ, an auxiliary air-chamber provided with a bellows
connected to the main valve, such bellows having inlet and outlet
valves alternately opened and closed by pressure upon the key-lever,
the latter connected with the valve-rod of such bellows, whereby the
main valve 5 is positively opened by pressure upon the key,
substantially as shown and described.
125
3. In an organ, an air-chamber located bellow the main wind-chest, an
opening between such wind-chest and air-chamber normally closed by
a spring-controlled valve, a bellows in such auxiliary chamber, having
inlet and outlet openings on opposite sides, the main valve adjustably
connected to the top of such bellows, a valve-rod passing through the
latter, and valve mounted thereon whose action closes one valve when
the other is open, such valve-rod connected to the pivoted lever
directly operated by pressure upon the key, whereby the main valve is
directly opened by the joint action of the key-pressure and the
collapsing of the auxiliary bellows, all combined substantially as
shown and described.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand this 20th day of May,
1891.
THOMAS P. SANBORN217
A photograph Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s patented valve mechanism design is
provided in figure 5e (page 108).
The manual windchests of the 1892 organ were of slider-pallet design with
common note channels. Thomas Prentice Sanborn’s signature bungboard clamps were
used on these windchests, as well as on the Pedal chests. A photograph of these clamps
(in the 1892 Sanborn) is found in figure 5f on page 144. The 1892 façade was composed
of speaking pipes from the Great 16’ Teneroon, the 8’ Diapason, and the 4’ Octave while
the wooden façade pipes were non-speaking. This façade was originally stenciled until c.
1938 when gold paint was used to cover the front of the pipes. The Swell division was
located to the left of the Great and the Pedal was at the sides and divided C and C#. As
mentioned in Chapter III, the layout of the façade was very similar to the Sanborn organ
at Memorial Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Tonally, this instrument is comparable to the Opus 571, 1871 instrument for
Music Hall in Providence, Rhode Island, by E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings. The Great
217 Patent, No. 394,423.
126
division of both organs was based on 16’ pitch and had several stops at 8’ pitch.
Sanborn’s 1892 instrument featured five stops at 8’ pitch and two stops at 4’ pitch. The
1871 E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings organ and the 1892 Sanborn had an 8’ Trumpet on the
Great, as well as a Mixture and a 2 2/3’. The Swell divisions of both organs were based
on an 8’ Open Diapason and had a divided stop—the Oboe/Bassoon 8’. The Swell
division of the 1892 Sanborn features a divided rank at 16’ pitch, the Bourdon Bass and
Bourdon Treble. For both the E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings organ and the 1892 T.P.
Sanborn, the pedal division included two ranks of flue pipes at 16’ pitch and one rank of
flue pipes at 8’ pitch. The latest rebuild of the 1892 Sanborn included a 16’ Trombone.
Curiously, Goulding & Wood chose to add a metal-resonator 16’ Trombone despite the
fact that many other instruments of the late nineteenth century, including the 1871 E. &
G.G. Hook & Hastings organ, would have featured a smoother 16’ Trombone made of
wood.
In 1921 the instrument was rebuilt and electrified by Seeburg-Smith Company of
Chicago, Illinois. Justus Percival Seeburg, a Swedish-born piano maker, and Frederick
W. Smith, an English-born organ builder, both apprenticed with Robert Hope-Jones and
built and maintained theater organs.218 They did not typically have contracts for church
organs, but since the organ at Old Centrum was rebuilt near the time their firm went out
of business, it is possible they were desperate for work.219 Electro-pneumatic pulldowns
replaced the mechanical action, a five-horsepower Kinetic blower replaced the 1909
Kinetic blower, and a new detached console was constructed in a horseshoe
218 Overall, “Pipe Organ Report,” 4.
219 Overall, “Pipe Organ Report,” 4.
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arrangement.220 The original reservoir remained intact, but the feeder mechanism was
removed.
An organ recital was given at Central United Methodist Church by Charles
Hansen, the organist at Second Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis, in May of 1923. This
recital, which may have been the dedicatory concert for the Seeburg-Smith rebuild,
featured works by Dudley Buck, Alexandre Guilmant, Felix Mendelssohn, James Rogers,
Richard Wagner, and Théodore Dubois and concluded with an improvisation on the
National Anthem.221
In 1951 the Cave Organ Company replaced the Seeburg-Smith console with a
Reisner Inc. (Hagerstown, Maryland) console (figure 5g, 145).222 They also installed an
electropneumatic chest and removed eleven pipes from the rear center of the façade. The
Cave Organ Co. renamed the Swell Unison Bass a Gedeckt Bass and made a failed
attempt to enclose the Great, a process that was never completed.
In the second half of the century, the congregation moved north and the area
where Central Avenue United Methodist was located went from one of the wealthiest
sections of Indianapolis to one of the poorest.223 Interstate 65 was built and this further
decimated the neighborhood, essentially cutting it in half. On April 1, 2000, the Old
Centrum Foundation was founded and the ownership of the church was transferred to the
foundation.224 Old Centrum Foundation participated in maintenance of the building and
provided financial assistance for sixteen nonprofit organizations. Central Avenue Church
220 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 148.
221 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 148.
222 Overall, “Pipe Organ Report,” 4.
223 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 148.
224 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 147.
128
merged with Lockerbie Square United Methodist Church on July 1, 2006, and the
congregation worshiped in the building at Lockerbie Square.225
The organ was not in use at Central Avenue United Methodist Church for twelve
years and was in disrepair by the twenty-first century. It was partially restored by
Reynolds Associates Organ Services, Inc., with the assistance of M.P. Rathke, Inc., for
the 2007 Organ Historical Convention. Both companies donated materials and labor to
get the instrument working again at an estimated cost of $30,000, the majority of which
was borne by Reynolds. The following stop list, including wind pressure and pipe scaling
was provided by Reynolds for the 2007 Organ Historical Society Convention:
OLD CENTRUM (Central Avenue Methodist Church)
Indianapolis, Indiana
Thomas Prentice Sanborn – 1892
2 Manuals – 28 Stops – 32 Ranks – 1,859 Pipes
GREAT ORGAN – 15 Ranks, 915 pipes, approx.. 3’’ wind pressure. Original pallet
and slider windchest. Tracker key and stop actions replaced by Seeburg-Smith.
C1 = CC here [only]
STOP
COMPASS NOTES
16’ Open Diapason 61 pipes
Scale 46 at 8’ C. #1 to #24 zinc; #25 to #61 spotted
Metal. Slotted; sleeves on trebles. Marked
“Teneroon” on original console
8’ Open Diapason 61 pipes
Scale 43 at C1. #1 to #12; #13 to #16 spotted metal.
Slotted; Sleeves on trebles.
8’ Dopple Flute
61 pipes
Stopped wood. Scale 2 1/4” x 4” ID at 4’ C.
8’ Melodia
61 pipes
Open wood. Scale 2 1/8 x 2 3/4” at 4’ C. Inverted
mouths.
8’ Gamba
61 pipes
Scale 58 at C1. #1 to #12 zinc; #25 to #61 rich
spotted metal. Slotted. Cone tuned above 1’.
225 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 147.
129
8’ Dulciana
61 pipes
Scale 56 at C1. #1 to #12 zinc; #25 to #61 rich
spotted metal. Slotted. Cone tuned above 1’.
4’ Octave
61 pipes
Scale 58 at C1. #1 to #24 zinc; #25 to #61 spotted
metal. Slotted. Cone tuned above 1’.
4’ Concert Flute
61 pipes
Doppel Flute pipes. Scale 2 1/4 x 3 1/2 at 4’ C.
2 2/3Octave Quint 61 pipes
Scale 67 at C1.
2’ Super Octave
61 pipes
Scale 72 at C1.
III Mixture 1 ⁄
183 pipes
#1 to #25: 1 1/3, 1’, 1/2; #26 to #37: 2’, 1 1/3, 1’;
#38 to #61: 5 1/3’ 2’, 2’.
8’ Trumpet
61 pipes
Scale 4 1/2"at C1.
8’ Clarinet
61 pipes
Scale 1 1/2"at C1.
SWELL ORGAN – 14 Ranks, 854 pipes, approx.. 3” wind pressure. Original pallet
and slider windchest. Tracker key and stop actions replaced by Seeburg-Smith.
STOP
COMPASS NOTES
16’ Bourdon Bass
16’ Bourdon Treble 61 pipes total
8’ Violin Diapason 61 pipes
Scale 47 at 8’ C. #1 to #12 zinc; #13 to #61 spotted
metal.
8’ Gedeckt Bass
8’ Gedeckt Treble 61 pipes total ID = 1 1/2” x 2 1/4” at C1.
8’ Aeoline
61 pipes
Scale 71 at 4’ C. Slotted; slide tuned. Cone tuned
above 1’.
8’ Celeste
61 pipes
Scale 71 at 4’ C. Slotted; slide tuned. Cone tuned
above 1’. Pipes and original console marked
“Salicional”. Possibly retuned as celeste at a later
time.
4’ Principal
61 pipes
Scale 60 at 4’ C. C1 pipe inscribed “T.P. Sanborn”
on lower lip.
130
4’ Flute Harmonique 61 pipes
Scale 68 at C1. Harmonic from C25. Spotted metal.
Slotted. Cone tuned above 1’ C.
4’ Violin
61 pipes
Scale 68 at C1. Spotted metal. Slotted.
2’ Piccolo
61 pipes
Single length, nonharmonic. 1/3 taper. Marked
“Flageolet” on pipes and original console.
III Mixture 2’
183 pipes
#1 to #14: 2’, 1 1/3’, 1’; #15 to #37: 2 2/3’, 2’, 1’;
#38 to #49: 2 2/3’, 2’ 2’. #50 to #61: 2 2/3’ 4’ 4’.
Arched upper lips on all off-unison pipes. Low
cutups.
8’ Bassoon Bass
8’ Oboe
61 pipes total Open resonators; tapered shallots. Scale 2 1/2", at
C1.
8’ Vox Humana
61 pipes
Scale 1 3/4’, at C1. Half-capped resonators.
PEDAL ORGAN – 3 ranks, 90 pipes. Wind pressure approx. 3”. Original pallet and
slider windchests.
STOP
COMPASS NOTES
16’ Open Diapason 30 pipes
Open wood pipes.
16’ Bourdon
30 pipes
Stopped wood pipes.
8’ Cello
30 pipes
Open metal pipes.226
The console (in 2007) had five pistons for each manual, a Great to Pedal
reversible, two expression pedals, a crescendo pedal, a sforzando pedal, and a crescendo
indicator above the swell. It also featured a thirty-seven note harp stop refurbished by
Carleton Smith Organ Restorations. Seeburg-Smith had added this stop as well as a set of
chimes to the organ in the 1920s. Both of these ranks were not used during the 2007
convention, but were included in a more recent rebuild that will be discussed later in this
chapter. A recital was performed on Thursday, July 12, 2007, on the instrument at Old
226 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 150–151.
131
Centrum by Charles Manning. Mr. Manning earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees
at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. Currently he serves as organist at St.
Luke’s United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. Manning’s program included:
Chaconne in G Minor
Louis Couperin
1626–1661
Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele
Johannes Brahms
24 Pièces en style libre, Opus 31
Louis Vierne
XIX. Berceuse
1870–1937
Trivium for Organ: II (1988)
Arvo Part
b. 1933
Hymn: Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven
LAUDA ANIMA
Intrada in E-Flat Major
Grayston Ives
b. 1948227
In 2010, a seven million dollar project to renovate Old Centrum into a new state
headquarters for the historic preservation organization was launched, which included
rebuilding the 1892 Sanborn. Funds for this project were given by Bill and Gayle Cook,
two Bloomington, Indiana-area philanthropists.228 At the request of Bill Cook, Goulding
& Wood Inc., of Indianapolis was hired for the renovation project, and in February of
2010 Goulding & Wood personnel removed the organ from the old sanctuary. The
building at that time did not have any electricity, so their work was done by flashlight and
in winter attire.
Interestingly, Goulding & Wood is only half a mile away from Indiana
Landmarks. The project was led by Mark Goulding. The pipes of the instrument were in
227 Hoosier Holiday, 15.
228 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 150–151.
132
fairly good condition, although the scroll-tuned pipes were in more satisfactory shape
than the cone-tuned pipes. The pipework was washed, fitted with tuning sleeves, and
regulated by voicer Brandon Woods.229 All pedal stops were extended from a twenty-
seven-note compass to a thirty-note compass. (The previous Reisner console had a
standard thirty-note compass, but the pedal division had only twenty-seven speaking
pipes for each rank.) Another feature added to the pedal division of the instrument was a
metal-resonator, 16’ Trombone built by A. R. Schopp’s Sons, Inc.230 The façade pipes
had originally been stenciled; Conrad Schmitt Studios of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the
company that restored the interior of the Grand Hall where the instrument is now located,
stripped and re-stenciled the pipes and added gold leaf. Figure 5h (page 146) is a
photograph of these pipes prior to the final painting. The original casework was restored,
the apron paneling was extended to accommodate the room modifications, and a movable
platform for the organ console was built to match this paneling.
Aside from the restoration of the case, façade, and pipework of the 1892 Sanborn,
no attempt was made by Goulding & Wood to restore this instrument to its historic state
as they deemed it “inappropriate and possibly impossible.”231 Seeburg-Smith had
electrified the instrument in the 1920s and thus the original tracker action was no longer
extant. Kurt Ryll designed a two-manual console that was patterned after the console of
the 1902 Bernard Schaefer pipe organ in Saint Anthony Church of Evansville, Indiana.232
This new console has a solid-state switching system and combination action,
electronically regulated high capacitance rectifiers, and a one hundred twenty-eight level
229 Schnurr, “Old Centrum,” 150–151.
230 Most organs of the late nineteenth century had a wooden 16’ resonator reed in the pedal, which would
generally produce a more fundamental tone than a metal pipe.
231 Overall, “Pipe Organ Report,” 8.
232 Overall, “Pipe Organ Report,” 11.
133
memory system with twelve General pistons, eight Divisional pistons for both the Great
and the Swell, five Divisional pistons for the Pedal, a programmable Sforzando, and a
sequencer.233 The stage floor at Indiana Landmarks Center was structurally rebuilt to
support the instrument. A new three-phase, seven-and-a-half-horsepower motor built by
the Marathon Electric Co. of Wausau, Wisconsin, was added to the fan from the Kinetic
blower installed by Seeburg-Smith in the 1920s.234
All of the original main Sanborn windchests were replaced with new Goulding &
Wood electro-pneumatic slider and pallet chests. The off-note chests were equipped with
standard electro-pneumatic valve control systems. At least one of Sanborn’s original
slider/pallet windchests was kept and is in storage at the Goulding & Wood factory, but
unfortunately, many original parts were discarded during the rebuild.
The organ cost between $350,000 and $375,000 to rebuild and was previewed at
the Goulding & Wood shop before being reinstalled at the Indiana Landmarks Center in
the spring of 2011.235 Dean Emeritus of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music,
Charles Webb, played a preview on February 16, 2011, and also was the recitalist for the
dedicatory concert in April of that year. Unfortunately, Bill Cook (who provided the
funds for the rebuild) died just weeks prior to the completion of the project and was
unable to be present for the dedication of the space.236 Following is the specification of
the instrument given for its dedication at the Grand Hall of Indiana Landmarks Center.
INDIANA LANDMARKS CENTER
Indianapolis, Indiana
Thomas Prentice Sanborn—1892
233 Overall, “Pipe Organ Report,” 11.
234 Overall, “Pipe Organ Report,” 11.
235 Overall, “Pipe Organ Report,” 12.
236 Overall, “Indiana Landmarks,” 28.
134
GREAT ORGAN
16’ Open Diapason 61 pipes
8’ Open Diapason 61 pipes
8’ Doppel Flute
61 pipes
8’ Melodia
61 pipes
8’ Gamba
61 pipes
8’ Dulciana
61 pipes
4’ Octave
61 pipes

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