Bradford Organ Co.
1993

An excerpt from page 53 of a volume by Carolyn Ellis Lipscomb entitled "Auburn United Methodist Church 1837-1987: A history of a great church and the people who made It that way" reads: "Mrs. J.B.K. Spain, the talented wife of the pastor in 1899, inspired the members to purchase a handsome pipe organ . . . The total cost was $1,500 . . ."

This fine 1900 Henry Pilcher’s Sons organ served as Auburn United Methodist Church’s main instrument from the year of its installation until the summer of 1955, when a new sanctuary (with a new pipe organ) was completed. At that point the original sanctuary was renamed “Friendship Hall” (later renamed “Founder’s Chapel”) and over the decades the Pilcher was abandoned, though happily neither damaged nor altered.

Bradford Organ Co. was asked to examine the instrument in March of 1992, and in 1993 completed a full restoration of the organ, including its hand-pumped bellows and façade stenciling. Save for the addition of an electric blower and replacement of its yellowed and cracked ivory naturals with bone, the instrument remains in original condition.