This is the first of a series of pages offering descriptions of the organ, from 1882 to the present day (2008). An attempt is also made to follow the trail of both ownership and locations over the last 220 years, which will hopefully given some idea of its evolution from a playable chamber organ in the Downer family residences to a fragile and incomplete museum artifact, now owned and preserved by The Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania.

Part I : Historical Descriptions

1882. "Mention of the Downer organ is called for here. Mr. Downer possessed all his life a strong musical taste, as well as much mechanical genius. When he left Boston for the West he carried with him a crude impression of the mechanism of a pipe organ, intending when he reached his new home to construct one for his own use. Upon settling at Elizabethtown he selected a lot of black walnut timber and seasoned it thoroughly. During such odd hours as he could snatch from his business he spent his time in the construction of the organ, and at the end of about a year finished it. It measured ten feet in height and five feet across each side. Every part of it was composed of black walnut, even to the keys and pipes, of which latter there were three hundred and sixty-five. The face of it was handsomely ornamented with scroll-work, the which he fashioned with a pocket-knife. To all the country around about it was an object of curious interest, and from far and near people frequently came to see it and to hear Mr. Downer play upon it. It possessed an excellent tone and volume, and to play it was one of Downer's greatest delights.
      "The organ is still in the possession of Mr. Downer's daughter, Mrs. Thompson, of Fayette City, and although nearly a hundred years old is not only an ornament, but yet makes very good music."1

1920. "The lower part of the organ contains the bellows, which were pumped by foot by a detachable pedal. Above the bellows is the chest, some ancient cracks in which are pasted over with bits of newspapers bearing the date of 1828. The upper part contains the banks of pipes, many of which are in excellent condition today, showing the goodness of the material employed and the honesty of the workmanship. On the inner frame is chalked the notation "Tuned in 1835," followed by some later notations of the same sort. The outer case is finished in cream-white in many coats of lead, well rubbed down, with ornamentation in relief, gilded. The instrument as it stands in about eight feet high, five feet wide and four feet deep. There are six stops, three on each side of the single manual. The keyboard, like the manuals of all such instruments made 150 years ago, differs from those of organs and pianos of the present day in having the whole-notes represented by ebony keys, and the half-notes by white keys. The keys of the manual of the organ built in 1787 by Downer and those of the organ upon which Handel played [at Covent Garden Theater in 1745, once owned by the museum,] are exactly the same in the arrangement of the colors.
      "The old organ as it stands in the Carnegie Museum is mute. The skin of the bellows is broken in many places, the chest is badly cracked, and the keyboard is dilapidated."2

1960. "The dimensions of the case are 44 ½" x 55" x 89 ½". The keyboard is a sliding one, and is of the direct action type. The chest is of the slider type, and the "L" draw-knob levers which operate the sliders are rather crudely made of wrought iron. The bellows is pedal-operated. The keyboard compass is from G to g''', forty-nine notes, and is in reverse color. The sharps have a narrow ivory strip and the natural keys have a dark hardwood surface with carved decorations on the front surface. Originally the instrument contained six stops, but the names for the draw knobs are missing and there are insufficient pipes to estimate the specifications.
      "Particularly interesting is the case and its decoration. The displayed pipes are dummies and gilded. Their arrangement is similar to the "Port Royal organ, which probably dates from the same period. The case is all white, and is of mixed ornamentation. Its fluted pilasters, carved corners, and gilded embossed patterns on the upper case lack esthetic unity, causing the entire case to appear excessively ornate. Transcending any of its musical or esthetic weaknesses, however, is the intrinsic value of its construction and existence in a frontier society. 3

Part II : Description of the Organ at Present (coming soon)

Part III: Travels and Ownership - Residential and Institutional (coming soon)

 

Notes

1   Ellis, Franklin, editor. History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men. Philadelphia: L. H. Everts & Co., 1882, p. 809.

2   Holland, W. J. “The First Pipe Organ Built in the United States West of the Allegheny Mountains.” The Diapason, Vol. 11, No. 5 (April 1920), p. 4.

3   Dean, Talmage Whitman. The Organ in Eighteenth Century English Colonial America. Doctoral dissertation. University of Southern California, 1960, pp. 162-67.