2022-02-26 - James Holden pipe organ, c. 1830 built for Pitt Racer, both of Marietta, Ohio. (Photograph by Jeff Stevenson , submitted by Brian Ebie/Brian Ebie)
2004-10-30 - Status Note: There 1975 -Database Manager
2004-10-30 - Restored c. 1974 by Michael Hartmann Swinger. -Database Manager
2011-01-19 - Updated through on-line information from Michael Swinger. -- The organ was built for Pitt Racer of Marietta, sometime between 1830-1840. The museum records are not complete, but the name of James Holden is associated with the organ. As far as I have been able to learn, James Holden was a cabinet maker, and the foreman of the Marietta Chair Company. The organ has a wooden 8' stopped diapason and a 4' wooden open diapason. The organ was complete, but partially disassembled, but in generally good condition. The restoration included releathering the foot-pumped feeder bellows and the reservoir, releathering the pallets, releathering the pipe stoppers, fixing small cracks and splits in the windchest and replacing the old, tired steel pallet springs, which could no longer hold the pallets closed, no matter what I tried. A starburst-pattern satin panel in the center of the case was duplicated. This instrument should qualify for the oldest organ to be built in the old Northwest Territory? -Database Manager
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