Scot Huntington on March 18th, 2023:
This instrument was built for Wilkes College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 1971. Originally installed in a rehearsal hall behind the concert hall stage on the ground floor of the arts center, where the organ was powered from a switched wall outlet. The organ's primary function was for ensemble support in the building's concert hall. The college offered organ instruction, for which purpose a duplicate instrument was installed in a third-floor practice room in 1976. In June 1972, Hurricane Agnes cause catastrophic flooding in Wilkes-Barre. The proximity of the Dorothy Dickson Center for the Performing Arts to the Susquehanna River in the center of town put it in the bull's eye for major flooding throughout its first floor to a depth of over four feet. The organ was returned to the Buffalo factory for restoration. An employee in the factory at the time remembers only that the organ was "pretty well ruined", but not the course of treatment. The insurance bill for "repair" was over $7,000-- the replacement cost of a new organ in 1973 and several hundred dollars more than the organ cost in 1971.
I can't find any evidence of water damage in the chassis, pedal towers, console or platform, but the water level on the first floor of the arts center would have submerged the wind chest and most of the console. It may be possible the pipework was recycled, but it is also highly likely the organ's mechanism was a total loss and replaced in 1973, but notated as a 'repair' for insurance purposes. While the college approved the sale of the organ, they felt the people behind the memorial plaque needed to be reached for approval. Master Sergeant Whitman has no relatives now living in the area and no one at the college nor his National Guard unit knew the circumstances of the memorial nor where his surviving kin might be found. Since no living relatives could be located, the 1st Battalion of the 101st Armor division gave their permission for the sale of the instrument.
The organ was moved to Rhode Island by the Organ Clearing House. The repairs made in the SLH & Co. shop included the repair of several collapsed bass pipes and treble pipes damaged by poor cone tuning, the review of bass pipe speech caused by sunken languids, the installation of a console on-off switch, rebuilding of the Meidinger blower, replacement of all magnet armature disks, and the replacement of the plastic pedal sharps with walnut. The excellent voicing by Don Bohall remains unaltered.
The regulated manual pressure on the main windchest is 50mm, but the two Pedal 16' cubes operate off unregulated blower output "static" pressure- approx. 75mm. The pitch is A440 and tuned to equal temperament that has been stretched to sweeten C and D Major.
The organ's 1976 sister from the third-floor practice room was sold as part of the same package sale, to David Lennington of Towanda, Pennsylvania and relocated by organbuilder Randy Newman.
Jim Stettner on January 14th, 2023:
This entry represents the installation of a used organ.