The Mighty Hook

I have the joy and responsibility of playing and tending the three-manual, 41-rank pipe organ originally built in 1861 by E. & G. G. Hook, Boston, as Opus 300 for St. John's Episcopal Church, Detroit, and rebuilt by Hook & Hastings in 1891.

In 1903 the organ was sold to Holy Cross Church, Marine City, for the new church building. It has served faithfully in this second home for over a century. The organ, which contains mostly unaltered Hook pipework, was rebuilt/restored in 1977 by George Bozeman who added some stops originally planned for, and who restored a suitable case as was present in the original installation, the original case being discarded in 1891.

I do virtually all of the tuning and day-to-day maintenance of this instrument (Dave Wigton is on call and does the tricky, specialized stuff). In the five years since my arrival at this place I have increased in awe and respect for the innate quality of the construction and beauty of the voicing. As most of the flue pipes are cone-tuned and exceedingly stable, I rarely touch them. The reeds take most of my tuning attention and I intend to log the ongoing process of tuning them, as well as the other occasional mechanical and maintenance issues that I attend to.

Stay tuned!