Note: Not extant. Not playable. (in this location)
2023-08-16 - This entry represents the installation of a new organ. Identified from the book: Johnson Organs 1844-1898. The organ may have been relocated to the Methodist Church in Canaan, Connecticut, and if so has been rebuilt since then. -Jim Stettner
2023-09-25 - The Litchfield church bought a new Austin No. 368 in 1914. A Facebook caption of the present organ, a 1971 Reuter, states it "replaced an old organ relocated from the original building," a story likely true about some instrument now several organs removed. The church building itself has a convoluted history, which raises conflict questions as well. The present building is the congregation's third and fifth, built in 1829, and is the building Johnson Op. 70 would have been installed within. In 1873, the Congregationalists tired of their handsome building, and in a fit of Yankee thrift, moved it, shorn of the steeple, a block away where it served low civic purposes, and they erected a new gothic-revival church on their original plot. In 1929, in a fit of colonial revival fervor, they tore down the 1873 church, and moved the 1829 church back to its old plot, and again topped it with a particularly fine New England steeple. The 1914 Austin would obviously have been installed in the 1873 building, and apparently relocated into the new-old building in 1930 after it was moved back and rechristened as both their third and fifth building. The Austin was the organ replaced in 1971. If they were so keen to get rid of their handsome building when it was only 45 years old, they may have been inclined to throw out their old fashioned Johnson organ as well in 1873, or at least heavily update it with a new case. At any rate, the trail of the Johnson goes cold after its 1857 installation. Circumstantial evidence has tried to connect the Johnson Op. 70 with the organ installed by A.L. Conkey in the Canaan Methodist Church in 1905. The story has persisted for years, but the 2015 annotated opus list printed in conjunction with the OHS convention held that year, tempered that attribution with circumspection. The organ in Canaan contains old material, and was either heavily rebuilt by Conkey recycling old parts or was simply an older instrument moved intact, i.e. it was not a "new" organ in 1905, although the church thought it was. Further forensic examination is required of the Canaan organ, to determine its provenance, and whether it has any connection to Litchfield and its Congregationalists, William Johnson, or not. -Scot Huntington
Source: "Local" (column), *Litchfield (CT) Enquirer*, Thursday, October 1, 1857, [2], Newspapers.com; https://www.newspapers.com/image/884034942. 1857
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