Transplanting a 116-year-old organ: 1907 South Deerfield church organ saved just in time, finds new home at Merrimack College

On a freezing day in January 2020, notes once again rang out from the South Deerfield Congregational Church’s dormant organ, which had been sitting there in the unheated building since the church’s 2017 closure.

Taking the seat at the instrument was Merrimack College’s Director of Campus Music Activities Hugh Hinton, who was visiting Deerfield to check out the organ after a “chance” conversation at the college’s 2019 graduation festivities, where he connected with South Deerfield resident Paul Olszewski, whose son, Nick, was graduating from the school, and Olszewski told Hinton about the church’s 1907 Emmons Howard organ.

Around that time, it just so happened Merrimack was undertaking renovations on the school’s Collegiate Church of Christ the Teacher for the school’s 75th anniversary and there was an opportunity to replace the church’s electric organ with a “gem of an instrument.”

“You can call it chance, you can call it fate, you can call it provenance, you can call it whatever you want,” Hinton said of the conversation with Olszewski, adding he could imagine a new life for the organ when playing it on that chilly January morning. “I could just hear the promise and potential.”

‘I just couldn’t see this thing turned into firewood’

Olszewski, a Deerfield native and longtime banking professional, ties more than just his own personal memories to the church where he married his wife in 1994.

He, along with numerous other people, attended Sunday school at the church and saw their fair share of weddings and other life events take place there. He also served as the church’s treasurer and on its board of trustees. Those connections even extend beyond his life, as his parents married in the South Deerfield Congregational Church in 1955.

So, when the church closed in 2017, the future of its organ was uncertain, although other items were distributed to other United Church of Christ congregations around the state.

As the years went by, Olszewski turned back to the organ and wanted to figure out a way to get it out of the church and back into use before someone dismantled it.

“I’ve been here all my life,” he said. “I just couldn’t see this thing turned into firewood.”

From that conversation in 2019, to Hinton’s visit in 2020 and all the way through spring 2022, Olszewski had been working with the town to designate the organ as surplus property so it could be moved, an approval that came from the Selectboard in October 2021.

Finally, in April 2022, a memorandum of agreement was signed by the Selectboard and Merrimack’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial and Operating Officer Jeffrey Doggett to gift the organ to the school, with all moving and renovation expenses paid by Merrimack.

Restoration

Over the course of a week, a team of Deerfield Highway Department, Merrimack College and Andover Organ Company workers prepped the organ for removal, dismantled it and prepared it for moving and restoration.

Andover Organ Company President Ryan Bartosiewicz, as well as Matthew Bellocchio, who works as a project manager for the company, said the organ experienced the general wear and tear an instrument would undergo over its lifetime, but it was in generally good shape otherwise.

“This was sort of a typical, but good example of an Emmons Howard from the period in decent shape that needed a full 100-year restoration,” Bartosiewicz said, with Bellocchio adding no alterations had been made to the instrument over the years.

Emmons Howard, Bellocchio added, built organs in Westfield in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with his biggest claim to fame being that one of his organs was being played in the Temple of Music at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition when President William McKinley was assassinated.

Turning back to the instrument in Deerfield, Bellocchio explained the connecting rods — known as trackers — had worn down over the years, so they needed to be replaced with new ones of the same size and style and they put in a new blower motor, but the rest of the instrument was able to be cleaned up and restored.

“It needed a lot of TLC,” he said. “We spent three or four days taking it all apart and bringing it back to our shop … over the summer, all of the parts, we all systematically cleaned them and restored them.”

Bartosiewicz said the work they did was “very typical” of what they would do for this era of organ. In the 75-year history of the Andover Organ Company, Bartosiewicz and Bellocchio said the company has built 118 new organs, and restored or rebuilt 550 organs. They also tune approximately 300 organs a year.

He continued and said the 1907 organ in the South Deerfield Congregational Church doesn’t have a ton of major historical value, but it could become a good historical organ example in the future because it able to be moved to a new home.

Bellocchio said it’s like finding a Ford Model T in a garage — it’s not some major historical artifact, but it’s still a wonderful piece of history to have on hand.

“It’s a beautiful piece of workmanship; it sounds and looks wonderful,” Bellocchio said. “It’s certainly an asset to the college and the music program.”

The restoration and saving of an organ, Bartosiewicz added, goes against the current trend of churches closing and organs being “orphaned” and left to rot.

“As churching in the United States gets smaller, which is unfortunate, but it’s happening, there’s a lot of cases where churches close and it’s very difficult to find a home for the instrument,” Bartosiewicz said. “It found a home at just the right time and it’s an example of good building of the period from a company that doesn’t have very many organs left. It was lucky.”

Olszewski said he was impressed with the work the Andover Organ Company did when he last saw the organ at Merrimack.

“God, it looks beautiful … They just cleaned the thing stem to stern,” Olszewski said of the work done on the organ, describing it as a “significant investment” for the college. “If it sat there, it was just going to continue to degrade.”

While the organ has been in place since May, Hinton said they are hosting a public dedication concert on Nov. 20 to commemorate the church’s renovation.

A video of Hinton playing the refurbished organ in its new home can be viewed on YouTube at this link: bit.ly/3ZPuFn5.

“The beauty of the sound is really special; the instrument has a singing quality and it really helps to support people singing as well … It’s just a revelation to hear a really fine instrument like this and how gorgeous it sounds,” Hinton said. “I’m just so happy it could find a new home and can be heard again and put to good use.”

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.