Database Manager on April 3rd, 2016:
This entry describes an original installation of a new pipe organ. Identified by Scot Huntington, using information found in George Reed catalog ca. 1914.<br><br>The large brick [First] Baptist church was built in 1856. The Reed catalog opus list records a 2-manual organ for this church, and the May 1971 Boston Organ Club Newsletter adds the date and cost: $2,100; 1905. The church was destroyed by fire in the early 1960s and a new edifice erected on the site.<br><br>The 18-stop two-manual mechanical-action organ built for Holy Trinity R.C. in Greenfield, Massachusetts in 1903 cost $2,500, (now extant in the Congregational Church, Ashfield, Massachusetts), and a 15-stop tracker built in 1906 for a Catholic church in Hartford, Connecticut cost $1,750. The first known use of tubular-pneumatic action in a G.W. Reed organ was in 1908, so it is logical to deduce this was a tracker instrument roughly 15-18 stops in size.<br><br>Reed organs were well constructed, except for a propensity to build overly-thick chest tables which were prone to severe cracking. He purchased his metal pipes from Pierce in Reading, Massachusetts, his instruments were well-made and the usually excellent voicing was more reminiscent of the 1880s than the post-1900 Edwardian cigars and brandy tonal style.