2017-05-25 - Facade (Photograph by Erik Matson/Database Manager)
OHS convention: 2002
2009-09-05 - Updated through on-line information from Scott Regula. -Database Manager
2011-06-07 - Updated through on-line information from Connor Annable. -Database Manager
2015-11-01 - Updated through online information from Laura DArgo. -Database Manager
2022-04-06 - The organ is attributed to Emil Witzmann. From the *2002 OHS Handbook*: "...the organ probably dates from around 1885, contemporaneously with or shortly after the church's dedication. It bears no nameplate, but the initials "E W " can b e found on pipework; moreover, it is similar in design, construction and pipe markings to an instrument three stops larger at a sister congregation, Immanuel United Church of Christ in nearby Streamwood. This organ was visited as part of the 1984 Organ Historical Society convention, and is definitely known to have been built in 1888; it is also without a nameplate and has no builder named in church records. The "prickly" Gothic treatment of both cases, in carrying the arches fully over the pipework, was a declining style in this countr y by then, and points to their manufacture by a smaller, regional, more conservative organbuilder less concerned with or influenced by the latest organ trends. Further evidence points to a local solution. One of Saint John's histories says that the organ cost $875, which would be a reasonable price of about $roo a stop for an organ built regionally in the 1880s, but not from a firm with national clients with the attendant extra shipping costs. Germanic parishes, particularly rural ones, also tended to buy organs from a fairly local market, and usually from Germanic builders if possible, for reasons of ethnic relationship." -Paul R. Marchesano
From The Stopt Diapason Autumn 1997 Source: Source not recorded Date not recorded
St. John United Church of Christ, Palatine, IL ca. 1885 Emil Witzmann (attr.) organ Manual: 8' Open Diap. 8' Stop. Diap. 8' Dulciana (a) 4' Principal 4' Flute (tc) 2 2/3' Twelfth 2' Fifteenth a 1-12 Stopped Diapason Pedal: 16' Sub Bass Coupler From Erik Matson: There is a "Piano" foot pedal, which when pushed takes off all the stops from the right stop jamb (all the principals and 4' flute), and there is another foot pedal (presumably called "Forte" although the label is missing) which brings on all those stops from the right jamb. [Received from Connor Annable 2011-10-28.]
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