Fair Organist--"I am sorry you had to give off blowing for us, Giles."
Giles--"Yes, Miss; the organ don't sound what it did, do it? Jim, the new blower, be a very good chap, but 'e ain't got no music in 'im. Now, we did used to give 'em summat worth 'earin', didn't we, Miss?"
(Winnipeg Town Topics, 28 August 1909.)
The history of organs in Manitoba, Canada, is a neglected aspect of the musical, cultural, and church history of the province. A 45-year period around the turn of the century was the "Golden Age" of the organ in Manitoba. More than one-third of all the known pipe organ installations in the province up to the present occurred in this period, many of them in newly constructed churches. Both the instruments and the recitals played on them were matters of intense public interest. The installation of a new church orgn was not only a matter of pride and celebration on the part of the congregation, but it was also a significant event in the musical life of the community. This article presents a brief chronicle of the organ--the instruments, the builders, and the players--during this period of slightly more than four decades.
Religious Denominations and Historic Churches
Within fifty years after the displaced tenant farmers from the north of Scotland had arrived in Manitoba's Red River district between 1812 and 1814, many of the major religious denominations, now well established, had built their first churches. The first Roman Catholic churches were constructed in 1819 and 1822, followed by a series of cathedrals completed in 1833, 1862, and 1908. The Anglicans, whose religion was brought to the country by missionaries and employees of the Hudson's Bay Company, built their first Church Mission House in 1822, followed by several other churches along the rivers, including St. Andrew's on the west bank of the Red River in 1849 and St. James on the north bank of the Assiniboine River in 1853. Holy Trinity, Fort Garry's first Anglican church, was opened in 1868. The Presbyterians erected Kildonan Presbyterian Church on the northern outskirts of the settlement in 1851; the first Knox Church was established at a more central location in 1868, succeeded by larger buildings on other urban sites in 1884 and 1917. Other Presbyterian congregations constructed places of worship in various sections of the city: St. Andrew's in 1882, Augustine in 1887 and 1904, and Westminster in 1912. The Methodists founded their first mission at Red River in 1868; their first Grace Church was dedicated in 1871, enlarged in 1877, followed by a new building in 1883; the Wesley congregation established their first church buildings in 1883 and 1898. The Congregationalists arrived in 1879 and erected their first church building in Winnipeg in the early 1880s, followed by a second in 1890.1
Music in the Churches
The place of music in religious worship varied according to the denomination. Music was not readily accepted throughout the country by the Presbyterians, for they did not allow organs or hymns; the only singing was metrical psalms, later supported by a bass viol or flute. This situation continued until 1872, when their General Assembly decided to permit the use of organs.2 In Manitoba some members of the Kildonan Presbyterian Church congregation objected to the introduction of a choir and to the idea of having an organ. In a debate on these issues, one parishioner announced that if an organ were put in the church he would bring around Old Bob, his horse, "and take the 'kist o' whustles' out of the house of the Lord and dump it by the roadside." When the organ eventually was put in, another dissenting member transferred to St. Andrew's mission church, unaware that a small melodeon was used in services there, too. Nevertheless, soon after his daughter was appointed to play the instrument in Kildonan Church he returned there. This repentant parishioner was John "Scotchman" Sutherland, later an elected member of the first Legislative Assembly of Manitoba.3
In Winnipeg, where other religious denominations considered the organ an appropriate aspect of Christian praise, things went more smoothly. Grace Methodist acquired a small reed organ in 1873, and two years later a prominent mill owner presented the Baptist Chapel with a similar instrument.4 Other city churches, as well as those in outlying areas, also purchased reed organs, and they served these congregations for many years.
Reed Organs
The reed organ today exists only as a reminder of a bygone era, but it played an important part in the musical life of the community around the turn of the century. In addition to supporting congregational singing in the churches, reed organs were the focus of religious devotions and entertainment in family parlours throughout North America.
It is likely that the first reed organ in Manitoba was not imported but was built here. According to the recollections of an early pioneer, the first organ in St. Boniface Cathedral (the 1833 building destroyed by fire in 1860) was a melodeon made by Dr. Duncan, a medical officer with the regular army. He was "devoted to music and a very ingenious man."5 This may have been the same organ acquired by the Grey Nuns sometime after their arrival at the St. Boniface mission in 1844; later they gave the instrument to the parishioners of the Cathedral. One of the nuns, Sister Lagrave, played Dr. Duncan's organ in the Cathedral, but it was lost in the fire that destroyed the fourth Cathedral in 1968.6
An early imported reed organ, built around 1800 by Trayser & Cie, Stuttgart, Germany, was brought from England through York Factory in the mid-1800s, intended for use in a northern diocese of the Anglican church. During the journey the York boat overturned on the Nelson River, but the organ was recovered and brought south to St. Andrew's, where it was left with a local Sunday school teacher who was also the church choir leader. The organ was designed to be carried by four men using poles looped through metal rings, two on either side of the case; this allowed the organ to be moved to and from nearby St. Thomas Church. This instrument, now nearly 200 years old, is in the museum at St. Andrew's-on-the-Red Anglican Church, near Lockport.
Although nineteenth-century reed organs went under different names, all of them used wind-blown metal reeds to produce the sound. The smaller varieties, called melodeons or cottage organs, were compact, table-sized, semi-portable instruments. The larger versions were called harmoniums, cabinet organs, parlour organs, or pump organs, and their wind supply was produced by dual foot treadles that powered the bellows. Their fancy cases, decorated with ornate mouldings and carvings, made them desirable pieces of furniture in Victorian parlours in both city homes and farm dwellings. Larger church models had as many as 20 drawstops and sometimes pedal keyboards; these required an assistant to pump the bellows handle at one side of the case. Often they were mistaken by the public for pipe organs, since some of them had imitation pipes mounted on top of the case.7
Most of the reed organs in Manitoba churches and homes were built in southern Ontario by a few of the larger companies founded in the 1870s and supplied through their agents or retail outlets in Winnipeg. Before rail connections were established with Eastern Canada, organs were transported across the northern United States to St. Paul, Minnesota, and then north to Winnipeg by river boat. One of the largest manufacturers was the Bell Organ and Piano Company (or the Bell Piano and Organ Company, depending on its priorities); one of their large two-manual, 16-stop reed organs, with "mouse-proof" pedals, was installed in St. Alban's Anglican Church, Oak Lake, around 1890, and it is still in use. Other prominent Ontario makers included the Dominion Organ and Piano Company, the W. Doherty Piano and Organ Company, and the Thomas Organ Company. A large two-manual, 20-stop, Doherty instrument, built around 1904, originally in St. Alban's Anglican Church, Snowflake, is still in regular use in St. Andrew's-on-the-Red Anglican Church.
The T. Eaton Company, Winnipeg's largest retail store, sold several models of cabinet reed organs, made by the Goderich Organ Company, through its mail order catalogues around 1900. The basic "Queen" model, with 5 octaves, 10 stops, and 3 sets of reeds, was $29.50; the top-priced "Empress piano-cased" model, with 6 octaves, 12 stops, and 5 sets of reeds, was $75.00 (the lowest priced piano was $150.00). In 1902 J.J.H. McLean's music store invited the public to informal recitals on an automatic self-playing organ, "The Bellolian."
There was competition from American sources, however. In the mid-1870s Winnipeg newspapers carried advertisements by a dealer in St. Paul, Minnesota, offering pianos and organs to Manitoba residents, free of duty. The Manitoba Music Store in Winnipeg offered instruments by both American and Canadian makers, as well as tuning, repairs, and instruction. Several reed organs from the Estey Company, Brattleboro, Vermont, were supplied to Manitoba churches through a Winnipeg agent in the 1880s; a one-manual, 19-stop instrument, with ornamental pipes, now electrified, is still in use in St. Andrew's-on-the-Red Anglican Church.
A pioneer in Deloraine recalled a large imposing instrument installed in the Presbyterian Church there in 1897. The organ had two manuals and pedals, with ornamental pipes, and was powered by the strong arms of older boys or young men who pumped a heavy handle to inflate the two bellows. She remembered that pumpers earned the reputation of "good pumper" or otherwise. Too much enthusiasm on the part of the pumper made it difficult for the organist to adjust the volume, whereas a "good pumper" had more appreciation for the mood of the music and waited for the signals. One time, during an organ recital, a belt connecting the two bellows broke. The pumper was frantically working the handle, hoping to add more power to the remaining bellows, while the organist was giving signals for more volume, more volume! When the ordeal was over, the pumper was exhausted and drenched with perspiration. That pumper still remembered that occasion vividly at the age of 85.8
A later development of the reed organ was the vocalion, patented in 1872 and first exhibited in 1885, which had a smoother, organ-like tone. It was the instrument of choice for a few churches, but its relatively high cost made it uncompetitive with that of small pipe organs. One organist-critic called vocalions "atrocities." In 1890 McIntosh's Music House in Winnipeg advertised "The Vocalion Organ for Churches, etc; Parlour and Church Organs of every description."
Another variation was a hybrid instrument employing both reeds and pipes to approximate true pipe organ sounds in a less costly instrument. The Compensating Pipe Organ Company, which was in business in Toronto in the early 1900s, offered these instruments to Manitoba purchasers through a Winnipeg dealer, the Grundy Music Company. The company's agent installed a two-manual, 14-stop instrument, with full pedal keyboard, in St. John's Cathedral in 1902, replacing a less powerful model by the same maker:
The St. John's Cathedral is to be congratulated on the installation of its new organ, not only on account of the quality of the instrument, but also on its having been built for the Cathedral in time for the ordination of the new dean.
It is to be conceded that it is a very good thing indeed for churches, large or small, Sunday Schools, concert halls, etc., that it is now brought within their means to obtain a high grade organ, producing genuine pipe organ music, one that takes up less than half the space of any other instrument producing a similar musical result, (thus saving expensive alterations), and one that, as has before been said, can produce such beautiful effects with reeds and pipes, played together, (they can be tuned to each other at any temperament) and one which can be bought for half the price that has hitherto prevailed for instruments of similar volume. Similar musical results have never been produced before.9
Nevertheless, the musical qualities of the organ were not highly regarded by one professional organist: "Compensating organs, of which the less said the better, and which the hearer should be very generously compensated for listening to."10
Although many thousands of reed organs were sold during the peak period of their popularity between 1870 and 1910, their decline in popularity accompanied other innovations in musical entertainment, such as the player piano, the gramophone, and the radio, all of which transferred music appreciation in the home from a participatory activity into a passive one. Few reed organ manufacturers remained in business after 1930, and apart from those few instruments still being played in several rural Manitoba churches, the remaining survivors are collector's items in private homes and museums.
Pipe Organs
The history of pipe organs in Manitoba is largely a chronicle of events in Winnipeg. An expanding urban population, increasing wealth, the growth of the various religious denominations, and the flowering of musical culture all resulted in the construction of a large number of churches within a relatively short span of time. In the French-Canadian community of St. Boniface, three Roman Catholic Cathedrals had been erected in succession (1822, 1833, 1862) before other denominations began to construct their houses of worship in Winnipeg, on the opposite side of the Red River. The first major boom in church building construction began in the 1880s and extended to about 1915. Many of Winnipeg's largest and finest churches were built in these early years. Since many of the business, political, and community leaders, predominantly Anglo-Saxon in origin, were prominent members of the larger city congregations, they undoubtedly exercised considerable influence on decisions regarding the construction of church buildings, as well as on the installation of organs.
The pattern of organ installations in Winnipeg reflected, but did not exactly parallel, the major periods of construction of church buildings. The greatest number of organ installations in the city occurred between 1900 and 1930. In rural centres most of the early churches did not acquire pipe organs immediately, but used reed organs until they could afford pipe organs at a later date. The frequency of known organ installations during the period under consideration is evident in this summary:
City Rural Total
1875-79 2 2
1880-89 9 1 10
1890-99 6 1 7
1900-09 15 8 23
1910-19 20 3 23
Winnipeg newspapers published reports of the arrival of new organs, along with descriptions of their appearance and mechanical construction, often with complete stoplists. One such account, written by a city organist, assumed a broad educational function by including a lengthy discourse on the place of the organ in church worship, recent mechanical improvements in organ design, and the characteristics of the sound.11
In the 1880s Winnipeg had two or perhaps three organ builders, and it is likely that they were related to one another. The two partners H. W. Bolton and A. B. Handscomb were listed as organ builders in the city in 1883. It was this H. W. Bolton, formerly in Montréal, who submitted an unsuccessful tender in 1884 for the installation of a new organ in All Saints' Anglican Church. There was also Fred W. Bolton, another builder who worked in the city in 1885 and 1886, and Wm. Henry Bolton who was listed as an organ builder only in 1887. In the same year a one-manual, five-stop, pipe organ was installed in the Presbyterian Church, Birtle, Manitoba, by "Messrs. Bolton and Baldwin of Winnipeg." Which of the Boltons was involved in this venture is uncertain. As for the colleague Baldwin, he might have been one of a number of mechanics, fitters, or carpenters working in the city at that time who may have assisted Bolton on a part-time basis. A Bolton pipe organ installed in the Baptist Church, Winnipeg, in 1883 received a brief compliment in the press:
The chief characteristic of the organ is its sweetness of tone. The range of effects is necessarily limited on account of the smallness of the organ, but the delightful mellowness of tone is a great relief from the screaming effects of large and more pretentious instruments.12
Another Bolton organ was installed in Christ Church Anglican, Winnipeg, around 1886, but if any other Bolton organs were installed in Manitoba churches none of them survive, and there is no remaining evidence of the builders' activities in the area. The following sections provide brief accounts of some of the major organ installations in Manitoba in the early years.
St. Boniface Cathedral
The first pipe organ in Manitoba was installed in St. Boniface Cathedral in 1875 by Louis Mitchell, the Montréal builder who accompanied his new instrument across the continent and down the Red River from Moorhead, North Dakota, on the steamboat International. The unloading of the cargo on the St. Boniface side of the river was accomplished with the permission of the customs tax collector at the port of Winnipeg on 14 June 1875; more than fifty men were needed to complete the task.13
A large church organ arrived last Monday on the International for the Cathedral of St. Boniface. It was made in Montréal by Mr. Mitchell, the celebrated organ builder. It is the first church organ imported into the North-West, it is 19 ft high, 12 ft 6 in wide, and 11 ft deep. The case, which is already put up, is in the Grecian style, which is well adapted to the architecture of the Cathedral. The Organ weighs 12,000 pounds and costs over $3,200.
We hear that this new organ will be inaugurated on the 24th inst, upon the occasion of the celebration of St Jean Baptist day, and that there will be in the evening a grand concert at the Cathedral, the proceeds of which will go towards the fund for the completion of the church. All the musicians and artists of the Province will be present on the occasion.14
The organ was the gift of a group of friends of Monseigneur Alexandre Taché in recognition of the thirtieth anniversary of the date of his departure from Québec for the mission at Red River, and of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his appointment as Archbishop of the diocese. At the time of the installation of the organ, about $1,100 had been raised by pupils and associates from the seminary in St. Hyacinthe, Québec. Although the specifications of the organ were not given, the dimensions of the instrument suggest that it may have had about twelve ranks of pipes.
The ultimate destiny of the organ was the first instance of organ recycling. In 1921, when the Cathedral purchased a larger instrument from the First Lutheran Church, Winnipeg, the Mitchell organ was removed and divided into two smaller instruments; one went to a school in St. Boniface, and the other to a mission in Lebret, Saskatchewan, both operated by the Oblate Fathers.15
Holy Trinity Anglican Church
Holy Trinity Anglican Church acquired its first pipe organ in 1878; it was installed by Samuel Warren & Son, a prominent company in the history of Canadian organ building. Warren, a descendant of one of the passengers on the 1620 voyage of The Mayflower, acquired his technical skills in Boston before emigrating to Montréal in 1836, where he built and repaired organs. The family firm moved to Toronto in 1878 and produced more than 350 pipe organs, along with pianos and other musical instruments, until it was sold to another organ company 1896. The newspaper report of the installation described the instrument in some detail:
The organ is from the establishment of Messrs. S. R. Warren & Son of Montréal and Toronto, and does great credit to that well-known firm. Its price is $3,000, and it is a powerful instrument, containing two rows of keys and full pedale, and twenty-four draw stops. Some of these are of exquisite sweetness, particularly the Claribel Flute, the Viol di gamba, and the Oboe in the swell, and the Dulciana and the Harmonic Flute in the great organ.
The case is of chestnut wood with black walnut facings, and the front pipes are beautifully decorated with fleur de lis, and other ecclesiastical designs, in blue, gold and chocolate color. The top is surmounted with carved pinnacles. The body of the organ is contained in a chamber, built specially for the purpose; the front projecting about two feet into the church on the south side of the reading desk, giving a good view to the congregation of the case and ornamented pipes. Mr. Warren having lately visited the principal organ factories in England, France and Germany, now applies to his instruments all the modern improvements, of which we may specially mention the voicing and tuning of the pipes. The present instrument has been carefully constructed in this respect and its builder has succeeded in giving to its notes a softness and sweetness not always heard even in larger and more expensive organs.16
When Holy Trinity Church moved to a new location in 1884, the Warren organ was relocated and enlarged by the builder. It was claimed that the renovated instrument was the largest west of Toronto. The organ was further enlarged eight years later. In 1912 it was replaced by a large four-manual, 50-stop instrument, manufactured by the Canadian Pipe Organ Company, founded two years previously in St. Hyacinthe, Québec, by some staff of Casavant Frères who had decided to go into business on their own. The new organ was again described as the finest in the Canadian West.
St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church
The inauguration of a new organ sometimes was marked not just by the performance of a single recitalist, but by a concert involving the church choir and several soloists. One such concert took place on 20 April 1883, on the occasion of the opening of the new organ at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church. The event was unusual in one respect; the organ builder, Samuel Mitchell of Montréal, was also the featured recitalist. Probably he was related to Louis Mitchell, who had installed the first organ in St. Boniface Cathedral in 1875. The newspaper report covered both the design of the organ and Mitchell's recital:
St. Mary's Church was well filled last night upon the occasion of the inauguration of the new organ by Mr. Samuel Mitchell of Montreal, one of the builders. The organ stands in the gallery just over the main entrance, and presents a very handsome appearance. The case is Moresque in design, and is richly decorated, the arrangement of colors ornamenting the front pipes being most effective.
The chief characteristic of the organ is its powerful tone, the reeds are voiced to a high pressure, and perhaps a little too coarse to suit the sensitive ear, but upon the whole it is well suited to the purpose for which it is intended.
The medley of National airs played by Mr. Mitchell which came after a short intermission, fully demonstrated the capabilities of the instrument. The imitation of the bagpipes greatly amused the audience, and the last expiring croak at the conclusion of "The Campbells are Comin'" elicited the laughter of all. Mr. Mitchell is a very clever manipulator, and the imitation of the fife and drum band was excellent.17
Thirty-five years later, the Mitchell organ was replaced by a new two-manual, 18-stop Casavant instrument. This organ, installed in 1918 at a cost of $3,692, would serve the church for a further forty years before being rebuilt by the same company.
Victoria Hall
Winnipeg's Victoria Hall, built in 1883 and later renamed the Winnipeg Theatre and Opera House, was the site for many concerts, musical events, and other entertainments in the early years. Some church congregations held services in the Hall before their own buildings were completed. One of the ventures of the Winnipeg Oratorio Society, which performed there, was to provide an organ for this building. The newspaper account of the forthcoming installation in 1884 pointed out that the 11-stop instrument, whose builder was not identified, was intended to be used instead of a string band and would equal an orchestra of about thirty performers.18 The list of stops included many ranks imitative of orchestral instruments: viol di gamba, horn, concert flute, clarionet, flute, piccolo, violin, and bass.
Grace Methodist Church
The first pipe organ in Grace Methodist Church was installed by S. R. Warren & Son in 1885, but a few years later it had deteriorated to the point of receiving an ultimate insult: "The organ at Grace church has arrived at that state of perfection when it is difficult to tell it from a circus calliope."19 When a new three-manual, 34-stop organ was installed by R. S. Williams & Son, Oshawa, in 1894, the decrepit instrument was transferred to Westminster Presbyterian Church.
The newspaper account of the new installation consisted entirely of a long discourse on the organ's technical innovations, which were thought to be resistant to Winnipeg's severe climatic changes. Even so, more than half of the report of the opening recital by a Minneapolis organist consisted of a series of observations on the theme that the organ needed "a good shaking down," for an intermittently-sounding pedal note marred the opening selection, and some of the valves were sticking. The instrument tended to go out of tune before the end of the program, perhaps due to a drop in the temperature of the church on the cold December evening. Nevertheless, the voicing was rated as excellent, as were the English-style diapasons and the reeds, some of them imported from France.20
An even more magnificent organ was acquired by the church in 1907: a four-manual, 46-stop instrument built by Casavant Frères, the largest organ in the history of the company to that date. The Casavant brothers, Joseph-Claver and Samuel-Marie, had established their factory in St. Hyacinthe, Québec, in 1879, following several years touring Europe, inspecting organs, and visiting workshops. In the following years their fame spread steadily beyond the towns and cities of Québec. The first Casavant organ in Manitoba was installed in the Parish Church, St. Norbert, just south of Winnipeg, in 1899. During the period under consideration, the company installed eighteen complete instruments in Winnipeg and five in rural towns.
The installation of the new Grace Church organ was celebrated in the evening of New Year's Day 1908 by a concert that included the choir, soloists, and a recital. The newspaper coverage of the event reported that the audience of nearly eight hundred people was delighted with the new "chest of whistles" and with the performance by the organist George Bowles (composer of the operetta, "The Manhaters of Manhattan," a Christmas cantata, and other works, when he was not otherwise occupied as the manager of the Winnipeg's Union Bank), although it was doubted that the ranks of reed pipes would remain in tune due to the severe temperature variations in a church heated by hot air.21
The eventual fate of the Grace Church organ is a unique story in the history of organs in Manitoba. Around 1942 Stuart Kolbinson, then a young man 24 years old, was working with C. Franklin Legge, the Toronto organ manufacturer, servicing a small Winnipeg organ built by a local company, probably Bolton. Legge introduced his assistant to the Grace Church organ, saying,"This will be for sale someday." Legge's prediction proved correct. Although Grace Church was regarded as the mother church of Methodism in the west, the wealthy congregation of the downtown church drifted away into the new city suburbs over the years, and the church building was demolished in 1955 to make way for a parking lot. Kolbinson bought the Casavant instrument for $2,000 and transported it to his prairie farm in the Kindersley district in Saskatchewan, where it was stored for several years. By 1963 Kolbinson had constructed a special building to house the organ, and it was ready to play. As stories of the heritage instrument spread, organists from as far away as Oregon came to try it out. Kolbinson left the farm in 1971 to enter the hotel business in Vancouver, then moved to Victoria, leaving his organ behind at the farm. After selling the farm in 1976, he returned there in 1979 to pack up his organ for the trip to Victoria. Although the organ had remained in an unheated building for several years, it played well except for being a little out of tune. Kolbinson, now retired, built a large extension to his Victoria home, including a bell tower, to accommodate the large instrument. In later years he reflected on his experience:
I have had many difficulties, but it is worth it, and I am sure that after I am gone the organ will still be the pleasure of those who will in the future have care of it. There is no reason why it won't be singing a century from today. . . .
Occasionally I have a visit from someone who knew old Grace Church in its glory days, but as time passes these get fewer as the passing years take their toll. All the clever hands that built [the organ] so well have long since laid down their tools for the last time. All honor to them, who took leather, wood, lead, tin and zinc and fashioned an instrument whose voice shall always sing their praise.22
Presbyterian Church, Birtle
The earliest known installation of a pipe organ in rural Manitoba was in a small town in western Manitoba; it was made by Bolton, the Winnipeg builder active in the 1880s. This chronicle of events appeared in a report of the state of music in the town at the time:
On his arrival here in 1882 your correspondent found only one miserable little melodeon and two pianos in the whole place. . . . Early in the spring of 1887 the Presbyterians, who had been holding their services in the Town Hall, decided to build a church of their own and succeeded in erecting and opening a very comfortable building by the 19th of June, but not satisfied with this they went a step further and substituted a small but good pipe organ" for the reed organ they had hitherto used. They now claim [incorrectly] to have the only pipe organ in the country west of Winnipeg. It was built by Messrs. Bolton and Baldwin of Winnipeg and is valued at $1000. At present it has only one manual with four stops, viz:--open diapason, stopped diapason, dulciana and principal and a Burdon [sic] set of pedal pipes, it also has a tremolo and swell box. This is just a start, I have no hesitation in saying that in another year or two there will be an addition to it in the way of a "swell organ" which will give them an A 1 instrument for a small church. On the evening of October 29th we opened the organ with a concert and organ recital. . . .
In conclusion I think you will agree with me that this is quite a go-ahead little town. This last year we have built two churches worth $5000, placed a $1000 pipe organ in one of them and subscribed over $200 to a band, all this is a town of less than 3000 inhabitants.23
All Saints' Anglican Church
In 1883 a new site was selected for All Saints' Anglican Church, and within a year services were conducted in the unfinished building. One of the ideals of the founders of this parish was that worship services should place more emphasis on the musical and ritualistic aspects of worship than was customary in Anglican churches in Winnipeg at the time. Accordingly, the nucleus of a substantial organ fund was established by the Ladies' Aid Society in 1884; even the Girls' Guild obtained some money from their activities that they wished to save for the organ. One aspect of the fund- raising activities of the Ladies' Aid Society received strong criticism in this anonymous letter:
Ch. of All Sts. has just been formally opened by the Bishop of Ruperts Land. 2 things in connection with the church and its opening are public property, and neither is creditable to those concerned. . . . [One] matter is the illegal, immoral lottery which the church is sanctioning for the benefit of the organ fund. A bed quilt or something of the sort is to be gambled for, the proceeds of the swindle to go to the church. All Saints Church is improperly named, it should be called All Sinners. To expect true Christianity in a fashionable church seems as absurd as to expect to find decency in a monkey house.24
Three builders submitted tenders for the proposed organ: H. W. Bolton, S.R. Warren & Son, and Casavant Frères. The successful applicant was Warren, who berated Bolton in several letters to church officials, referring to another organ that Warren had been asked to rebuild:
We are aware that there is a builder in Winnipeg but we should think that your congregation would hardly care to take the risk of entrusting the work to a man who has made so many disgraceful failures as the Queen's Hall organ in Montréal and in fact everything he has attempted.25
The decision on the organ was deferred until the debt on the church building was paid off. Finally, the new instrument was installed in 1891 and duly reported in the press:
Mr. Shaw of Messrs. Warren & Son, Toronto, is in the city placing the new organ in All Saints' Church, built by his firm, in position. The instrument has been carefully planned and the stops chosen for balance of power and variety of tone. It has two manuals with five stops on each and provision for two more on the swell and one on the great. Artistically, it will be a great improvement to the church, the front bracketed out into the chancel, projecting about two feet,. and the pipes are tastefully decorated.26
During the war years 1914-17 it was decided that a new pipe organ would provide a fitting war memorial, and a committee was formed:
The result of this committee's work was the placing of an order with Messrs. Casavant Frères of Québec, the well-known manufacturers, for a new pipe organ at a price of $8,344 to be delivered in July 1917 . . . and it is pleasant to relate that the Ladies' Aid Society again came to the front and very generously offered to meet each installment of $500 with interest as the same matured. The organ was duly installed as a memorial to the men of All Saints' who fell in the war and was dedicated on Sunday the 16th September 1917, the Church being crowded. The old organ was at the desire of the Ladies' Aid Society presented to the Congregation of St. Alban's Church in the City of Winnipeg.27
This article will be continued.
