Amenia church organ finds home in Tennessee

AMENIA — It’s been nearly two years since its closure, but a piece of the United Presbyterian Church of Amenia will live on at the St. Paul Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tenn. That’s because the Amenia pipe organ was salvaged and moved south just last month.

Originally built in 1871 by George Jardine, the story behind the organ begins with the church’s need for a more powerful instrument due to high attendance at services. The church commissioned a new organ from Jardine that would be larger and louder for hymns than the original.

“I have heard the organ in that space and it sounded wonderful. It certainly does fill up the space,” said Amenia Historical Society Vice President Betsy Strauss.

Since its creation, the modestly sized, 13-stop organ has functioned without any significant alterations. The organ case was constructed from chestnut and “speaks and sounds just as the original voicer intended,” said Brad Rule of B. Rule & Company, which dissembled, packaged and transported the organ to Tennessee.

Local organists around the Harlem Valley have referred to the organ as “Big Bertha.” Pine Plains organist Will Carter praised the instrument as “historic and remarkable” for the quality of its workmanship and its heroic scaling. 

The fact that it was built before the 1879 creation of the St. Patrick’s Cathedral organ in New York City contributes to its historic value, Carter said. 

For several years, the organ served as one of the United Presbyterian Church’s main attractions, even after the church’s final service in January of 2016.

As organist for the church’s last service, Carter described the occasion as “sad, bordering on tragic, because it was the end of an era to a historic link to our musical past.” 

When the church was still in operation, Carter said that he had the privilege of playing the organ for a number of Christmas concerts — he fell in love with it in the process.

“It was fun to share the sounds of it with other people,” he recounted. 

With regard to the organ’s future, he said that he would like to see it live on and continue to inspire others. In a sense, he said, the organ’s rescue will enable the congregations’ work to continue. 

As a musician who values the importance of preserving organs from closing churches, Carter said that the organ represented a link to the past. He added it’s important for organists to know what the experience was like to perform during different eras. 

“It totally informs how you play music,” he said. “It provides an essential link for understanding what the composer was trying to do and how you can make that relevant in today’s time and today’s places.”

When it came time to remove the church’s furnishings, it was through the efforts of the Organ Clearing House that the idea of relocating the organ was born. For a period of time, the organ was listed on availability websites before it was posted on a demolition website and then scheduled to go to a landfill.

It was during that same weekend that Rule expressed an interest in the organ — just as it was headed to a landfill. 

“There are quite a number of 19th century American organs being demolished and going to the landfill these days,” Rule said. “It’s difficult to do a triage on them and decide which ones are the most deserving of immediate rescue. Judging from the emails I receive from people hoping to save yet another old pipe organ, I would guess at least one organ a week is being lost.”

Rule recognized the instrument’s craftsmanship and knew there was a church in his hometown of Knoxville that wanted a small pipe organ. So, he organized a volunteer team to save the organ. Rule described its visual design as “storybook gothic” and noted that it’s compact and fits nicely into small spaces.

The process of salvaging the organ from the church ran from Saturday, June 24, to Monday, June 26. According to Carter, Rule arrived at the location with six people and three trucks before skillfully dismantling the organ piece-by-piece and packaging its parts into wooden crates.

Now that the move is complete, the Jardine organ might have its future determined, but the fate of the United Presbyterian Church of Amenia remains uncertain. The Route 22 property is currently for sale.