I recently did some research in the area of Canajoharie, New York. There is a wonderful old pipe organ in the area that I’ve had on my mind for years. This winter break seemed like the perfect time to finally plan a research trip.
It dovetailed perfectly with another organ-related event in the general vicinity: a long-planned AGO Chapter workshop in Albany. I figured that if I’m already traveling to Albany, why not take an hour’s drive out along the Mohawk and see the organ?
So I booked two nights at the Window Box Guest House in Canajoharie. This little town on the south bank of the Mohawk was, till very recently, the home of Beech-Nut baby foods. This factory has now closed and is relocating—thankfully, still to Central New York State and not to China!
The Arkell Museum is here, home to the world’s largest collection of Winslow Homer paintings. The local Lutheran church boasts at least two of the most beautiful Tiffany windows I’ve ever seen. The town—at first blush a red-brick testimony to a bygone industrial age—turns out to house any number of really good places to eat, as well as a pretty decent infrastructure.
The guest house overlooked the back of the old Beech-Nut factory, as well as the Thruway, but I noticed no noise or inconvenience from this. The house fronts on a lovely old street, almost right next door to a stone church that, I’m told, is still very active.
I arrived Wednesday afternoon after a trouble-free trip up the Hudson via Amtrak, then a car rental in Albany. My host and hostess couldn’t have been more gracious. Learning of my need for low-sodium food, they insisted that I cook in the kitchen. I was thrilled, and drove to the nearby Price Chopper for the ingredients for “Adirondack Skillets,” which I kind of made up on the spot.
I picked up chicken breasts, shiitake mushrooms, green beans, onions, sweet and white potatoes—good basics. I took these home and made a one-skillet creation. I enjoyed it quite a bit, if I say so myself.
What great hosts! What a nice B&B! I’d recommend it to anyone.
The next day, I was at Trinity Lutheran Church in Stone Arabia at the appointed time—well, two minutes late; the temperature was in single digits, and I stopped at the gas station on the corner for a large coffee!
Margaret was in the church already. Margaret is one of those God-given people who support churches in real, practical, and invaluable ways the world over. She gladly showed me all of the ledgers and secretary’s books dating back to the 1880s—and all of them sitting unlocked in a glass cabinet in the parish hall.
In places like this, history is a living thing, a friend sitting in the room with you.
I took two extended times in the unheated sanctuary—the temperature not above fifteen degrees Fahrenheit —and first played, then photographed and recorded the organ in some detail. I took occasional breaks for the comparative warmth of the parish hall, where Margaret had turned on the gas heater. There is no running water in winter, and I had to use a chemical toilet. One of the kitchen sinks is newer, and is outfitted with running water. The other is copper and has drains but no faucets.
I also did a good bit of research in the parish record books— at first, following up a false lead as to when the organ arrived; for local lore held that it was bought second-hand “from Gloversville or Johnstown,” and that turned out not to be the case.
I won’t spill the details: read about them sometime later this year when the article is published.
But read this here, now: it was Margaret who went through the box that yielded the correct answer. While I was inside the sanctuary recording the organ, she found the right books! Hurrah!
After we were finished, the rest of the day held visits to the Stone Arabia Reformed Church, now a civic structure. Then we went on to the Indian Castle Church, built by Sir William Johnson in 1769 and nearly destroyed by arson in 1979. Then we saw the above-depicted Tiffany windows in the Lutheran church in Canajoharie. Later, I was able to visit an organ in the old Catholic church in town, now a private residence and concert hall.
O
n Friday morning, I left for Albany. I got to Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church ahead of schedule, and had a wonderful time practicing on their bold and extroverted Casavant organ. It’s a very modern structure— almost like Saint Joseph’s in Hartford, albeit on a smaller scale.
The workshop was on hymn playing. I focused on the great theme: the spectacular is optional, but the competent is mandatory. And I developed issues of registration, tempo, articulation, leadership, breathing, and the like. I consciously limited my treatment of “pyrotechnics,” indicating a few simple possibilities for final verses. I preached empathy to the text, tune, congregation, organ, room, and moment.
What an incredible irony that, as I was leading that workshop, Gerre Hancock— whom I invoked several times— breathed his last.
I returned via Amtrak that same afternoon.
