Richard Craig Hamar
1978

The church was built of a water source, and continually battled a problem with dampness. While the Andover re-trackerization was only 10 years old, the aluminum action had corroded badly in that time, and had started hanging up badly in the guides. On top of that, the church had neglected the organ's maintenance since the 1966 restoration, had failed to cover the organ during extensive interior renovations which had been filled with dust as a consequence, and many of the splitting wood pipes had only received temporary repairs, and the problem had only accelerated. The contract in the amount of $3,900.00 was signed in the late spring of 1976, with a non-specified completion date. The job took four years to complete, during which time the church expressed its increasing consternation. The contract included several upgrade options, which the church chose not to purchase, but at least two were completed above the contract. The terms included:

• Remove all pipework for cleaning, de-denting, and the metal pipes were fitted with slide tuners- the cone-tuned metal pipes being straightened and repaired.
• Organ interior cleaned, sliders re-shimed and graphited, rackboards repaired, and bungs re-gasketed. Wood pipe stoppers to be re-gasketed.
• Springs lightened.

Options included:

• "Re-trackerize" pedal: i.e. replace long corroded aluminum trackers passing through multiple guides, with wood. Completed above contract at no charge.
• Replace Mixture III: pipes were missing and found badly crushed under the reservoir. Those that could be repaired, were reinstalled, but the top 18 notes were beyond salvage and not replaced.
• Replaced Spencer blower with silent German blower: not completed until ca. 1987 by Alan McNeely, with a unit too small to properly wind the organ.
• Replace poor-quality and badly split Gilbert & Butler wood pipes: pipes were instead repaired, above the contract, but church advised these were only provisional repairs and the ranks needed eventual replacement with pipes of higher quality.
• Replace the old rectifier: not done
• Replaced the missing Pedal Violoncello stop with new Octave 8': pipes for the G&B Cello from 4' C were found in building and repaired, the Organ Clearing House provided a bottom octave gratis.
• Rebuild action floating rails with stiffer timbers to eliminate sagging: not done
• Replace Hall stop motors with new: not done

There were several ranks of string pipes not reinstalled in the organ after the Andover rebuild as they were collapsing and badly dented. They existed in trays on the church property, but were never reinstalled. When the "reconstructed" Hook was built by Jeremy Cooper in 1992, the Organ Clearing House took possession of all the unused G&B material and put it in storage in a repurposed Christian day school in Harrisville N.H. where it was damaged beyond repair by a series of roof leaks and was junked.

This work was not a restoration or a rebuild. It was simply a cleaning, washing of pipes, and regulation of the action.

The original builder was E. & G. G. Hook (1857, Opus 221).

Rebuilt of Hook previously rebuilt by Andover 1966. Restored and altered, by Jeremy Cooper, 1995.