2004-10-30/2019-02-11 - From the OHS PC Database, Builders Listing editor, March 17, 2016. - Robert Y. Barrows was an organist, organ architect, inventor, and artist. He also designed at least one house in Rutherford, New Jersey; it was listed for sale in 2015. He was a Mason and served as the organist for the Boiling Springs Lodge in Rutherford, New Jersey1. He was a member of the AGO and was elected to the national council in 19142. He addressed the Central New York Chapter of the AGO on the subject the Polyphone Pipe in Utica New York, January, 19063. As an inventor, he held many patents, including ones for lighting fixtures and electrical outlets, as well as those related to organ pipes. He was born in Connecticut in 1866 and died c. May 1922 in Rutherford, New Jersey.4 Patents held: Patent #1,006,425; 17 Oct. 1911; pipe - this was a scheme for varying the power of an unenclosed labial pipe by providing multiple air supplies to each pipe in a rank, the illustration shows a wood pipe with four separate feet going to each pipe Patent #1,063,239; 13 Jun. 1913; pipe - for labial pipes, the object being the production of tones of great power and harmonic richness using pipes of small scale without the requirement of high pressure wind by using two mouths of different widths (variation on Doppelflote?). Patent #1,074,768; 7 Oct. 1913; pipe - this was a means of providing two different mouth widths for labial pipes to give two different tones of the same pitch from the same pipe Patent #1,075,682; 14 Oct. 1913; pipe - this was a means of providing two different mouth widths for pedal pipes to give a loud or soft tone from the same pipe Sources: The Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Masons for the State of New Jersey, Annual Communication held April 17 & 18, 1918. (MacCrellish & Quigley Co. Trenton NJ 1918) "American Guild of Organists, Council Meeting of April 27, 1914" The New Music Review and Church Music Review, Volume 13, Issues 145-156 (Novello, Ewer & Company, 1914), 301. "American Guild of Organists, Central New York Chapter,Annual Report" The New Music Review and Church Music Review, Volume 14, Issues 157-168 (Novello, Ewer & Company, 1915), 302. David H. Fox, A Guide to North American Organbuilders (OHS Press, 1997), 63.
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