Unknown Builder
1959

Correction: "Ashmere" was actually built by Edwin Douglas and his wife Harriet Dexter on land gifted to her by her father Seth. Her daughter Julia married Raymond Coffin who ran the Dexter family paper mill, and is the purchaser of the Ryder for the estate in 1883.

Alan Laufman's files are rarely wrong, but his date of the 1983 for the sale of the Ryder organ from Broad Brook to Hebron, Conn. is highly questionable. The 1975 O.H.S. extant list already has the organ in Hebron-- moved and rebuilt for that place in 1963. I've consulted five different sources about the history of this organ and its moves, and they all disagree widely. The most plausible is the highly-accurate annotated Ryder opus list compiled by a private individual, which agrees in broad strokes with the construction of the present Grace Church building.

Circa 1961-62, the 19th-century Broad Brook church was condemned and replaced with a new, smaller structure at 44 Ellington Road. A photo of the Ryder when newly installed shows a massive crack traversing the back wall above the organ. Pews, a special window and other artifacts were saved, but there was no room allowed for the transfer of the Ryder so it was sold to the First Congregational Chruch in Hebron, Conn. where it was moved with tonal changes by John Wessel of Brattleboro, Vermont in 1963. It was later renovated and possibly altered again by Andover at some point between 1983 and 1990. The Hebron church became the pentacostal Church of Hope ca.2019- 2020 and reopening after Covid in June, 2021 is rushing to junk the organ as quickly as possible. In March 2019, the Grace Episcopal Church building in Broad Brook was deconsecrated and the congregation merged with Grace Episcopal in Windsor, Conn. The Broad Brook church was sold in June 2019 to the pentacostal Covenant Church congregation.

Two sources suggest the Ryder was rebuilt in Broad Brook with pipes from the original Welcome K. Adams organ in Grace Episcopal-- an instrument gone without a trace when Ed Boadway recorded the Ryder stoplist as it was newly installed in Broad Brook without alteration in 1959. It may be the sources are conflating the location of the Adams, which could plausibly have been the original organ in Hebron, not Broad Brook, and Wessel may well have incorporated Adams pipes into the tonally altered organ as part of his moving and modernizing it for Hebron. One source indicates the Broad Brook Adams was a two-manual while the other more accurate source states it was one. It is suspicious that a two-manual organ would have been replaced with an instrument of exactly the same size and similar age unless the Adams was failing, and it's more likely the Ryder was an upgrade from one manual to two.

The organ was built in 1883 for the 1848 Italianate mansion built by Herbert Raymond Coffin, "Ashmere", the grandest estate ever constructed in Windsor Locks, Conn.

The organ was given to the local Grace Episcopal Church in neighboring Broad Brook. It was installed in the rear gallery where it remained until the church was later condemned and torn down. The organ was relocated through the Organ Clearing House to the Congregational Church, Hebron, Connecticut, but historical sources conflict: one states it was moved in 1961 the other has it moving to Hebron in 1983. In 2021, a new Pentecostal congregation has taken ownership of the building and as of June 10, 2021, has no use for the organ and intends to junk it within just a matter of days.

Several sources state the organ incorporated parts of Grace Episcopal's former organ, a one-manual Welcome K. Adams built in Providence, Rhode Island. However, a 1959 stoplist recorded by E.A. Boadway and photos from the Organ Clearing House file for this instrument would dispute this. Also needing to be sorted out, are sources stating John Wessell of Brattleboro, VT tonally "modernized" the organ either here in 1961 or in Hebron in 1983.

From Ashmere Inn, Windsor Locks, CT. c. 1960.