Hook & Hastings
1890's

This entry represents the repair/rebuilding of an existing organ by its original builder following a lightening strike to the building. Identified through online information from Scot L. Huntington who restored the organ in 2024 after several rebuilds/alterations in the 1960's. "It was just recently revealed to me by a church member, that following a lightning strike to the steeple which blew out 236 panes of glass and which presumably damaged the organ, perhaps by water or explosive pressure, it was dismantled and shipped back to the Weston factory for repair. This explains some of the changes to the instrument that didn't fit with 1872: the horizontal shutters and hitch-down pedal were replaced with vertical shades and a balanced pedal; and stylistically, it appears the Swell St. Diapason was replaced at the same time. It is possible the organ may have been repitched to A435, or more likely just the Open Diapason was rescaled larger one half-step with a spurious pipe inserted at tenor G, for reasons unclear. However the circumstances of this rescaling and the exact date of this procedure is difficult to reconcile at this far remove. The spurious insert pipe looks to be of old Hook manufacture (labeled E and shortened to dead length), but the the work was crudely done, like it was a site repair and not done in a professional workshop. The rackboard in particular was pretty hacked up. The steeple was rebuilt with a much shorter spire that is the length existing today, although it was damaged again in the hurricane of 1938. There is today evidence of water damage to the manual windchest with stains, cracks and a warped bottom board, and the organ has been functionally cranky throughout the 20th century as a result. The organ was substantially altered by Delaware (1961) and Geddes (ca. 1967) and restored to its 1890s state by Huntington in 2024, reversing the 20th-century alterations."