2025-01-11 - Identified from the following newspaper articles: Untitled note, Helena (AR) Weekly Clarion, Wednesday, March 23, 1870, [3], Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/273104937: The organ for the Methodist church was ordered last week, and will be here in two weeks. The builder is Mr. S. S. Hamill, of East Cambridge, Mass., who recently erected the large organ in the new Presbyterian church in Little Rock. He enjoys a fine reputation, and has promised our Methodist friends a splendid instrument. "A New Organ," Helena (AR) Weekly Clarion, Wednesday, April 13, 1870, [3], Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/273105251: A New Organ.—Not the organ of a party, but of the Methodist church, is about being opened and started. It arrived during the past week, and will be put up and in order during the next two weeks. "Grand Church Organ" ("Local News" column), Lawrence (KS) Republican Daily Journal, Tuesday morning, May 10, 1870, Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/59540150 (brief article on the installation of the S. S. Hamill organ in the First Baptist Church at Lawrence): "[The Baptist organ] is a very beautiful instrument, and is from S. S. Hamsel's [sic] manufactory, of Cambridge, Mass. . . . Mr. Hamsel goes to Helena, Arkansas, to put up the fourth organ of his manufacture on this trip West." The OHS Database lists a 1904 Geo. Kilgen & Son organ for the Methodist Church in Helena; that record lacks supporting documentation as of this writing. If it is accurate, the Kilgen organ presumably replaced either the 1870 Hamill organ or an earlier organ that replaced the Hamill. -Charles Eberline
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