Haven United Methodist Church

Haven, Kansas

In 2003, Clark Rice, organist of this church, discovered an internet ad placed by Larry Stofer of the Rainbow Organ Company in Dayton, Ohio. The ad described an 1893 A.B. Felgemaker which was near to being lost, since its home, the old German Baptist Church in Dayton, was slated to be converted into condominiums. A quick survey of the 10 stop instrument revealed a one manual instrument which was completely intact and unaltered, with scarcely any sign of tuning in the last 75 years. The measurably thick layer of dust in the Swell box (a full 1/16″) made it clear that no one had been inside the instrument in a very long time.

The church quickly made arrangements to purchase and move the instrument out before its imminent destruction, and B. Rule & Company rebuilt and installed the instrument in the summer of 2006.

Only one tonal alteration was made: we built a new Trumpet Bass Octave of twelve pipes to match the Felgemaker Trumpet in order to make that stop full compass. All metal pipework
in the instrument was the work of Gottfried, voiced very bright, and required little revoicing or regulation to function properly in its new home.

The case required considerable alteration, since it was much larger than the actual size of the Felgemaker, with extra flats of dummy pipes to fill the chancel arch in the Dayton church. The current case has only speaking pipes,and reflects the actual physical size of the organ.

The Haven church, with concrete floors and walls of brick, stone and block, provides quite an effective acoustic for this one manual instrument.