Trinity History

Music and Choir


   The earliest documented organ of any church in Fort Wayne is a small instrument of four stops owned by Trinity Church in 1848 and installed in its first edifice at the corner of Berry and Harrison streets. In 1867, the parish hired John Marklove of Utica, New York, to build a new organ for the newly-built church edifice, completed and installed by the time of the consecration in 1868. Henry Pilcher’s Sons of Louisville, Kentucky, installed a new organ in 1892, when the church introduced a vested choir of men and boys. Both the Marklove and Pilcher instruments were located on the right side of the chancel directly under the pipes. The Pilcher organ reportedly still exists as a part of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Plymouth, Indiana.
     In 1948, the parish contracted the Wicks Organ Company of Illinois to build yet another new organ with two manuals and twenty-two ranks, which was installed on the left side of the chancel. Under the supervision of organist Darwin Leitz in 1969, a new three-manual console was built by the Austin Organ Company.
    Years of patchwork repairs of the main organ followed until 2015, when the parish installed the Alice C. Thompson Pipe Organ, built as Opus 136 by Cornell Zimmer Organ Builders of Denver, North Carolina. A dedicatory bulletin stated that “the organ’s rebuilding was so extensive that it can be considered a brand new organ.” The handcrafted console of quarter-sawn oak and walnut, contains state-of-the-art technology. All of the previous organ’s mechanical, electrical, and wind systems have been completely refurbished and updated, ensuring both its longevity and reliability for years to come, and upholding the parish’s longstanding musical tradition. The new organ would not have been possible without a generous gift from the estate of Alice Thompson and many other donors.
    The trumpet pipes on the north wall of the nave, located on either side of the Great Window, are known as “Trompette en Chamade.” Added in 1980, the pipes resulted from the gifts of several parishioners and other community leaders: Helen M. O’Connor, Alfred J. Zacher, Darwin P. Leitz, and Fr. and Mrs. C. Corydon Randall. Memorials included thanksgivings for Robert Burns, Jack E. Shideler, Anthony P. Douloff, and George N. Tsiguloff. The trumpets allow for the playing of a great variety of ecclesiastical and classical music literature and are played frequently during wedding processions.
    The history of Trinity's choir is less well documented. In the 1850s, the church likely had an unvested quartet of two men and two women who would sign hymns from the rear or gallery of the church. In 1863, the Rev. Stephen H. Battin established Trinity's first choir at a cost of $30. No information exists to show whether it was vested or unvested or how large it was. The $30 was used to pay soloists. Beginning in the 1870s under the rectorate of the Rev. Colin Campbell Tate, the church made another attempt to have a choir. A newspaper noted that seats were being placed in the chancel for its members. It is likely that it was a sextet of men and women and was not vested, since vesting women was considered unseemly at the time. In the 1880s, the Rev. William Webbe attempted to reorganize the choir, hiring soloists, a man and a woman, at $150 and $100 respectively. The organist, Rudolph Wellenstine, was hired to play the organ on all Sundays and major feast days.       Later, Webbe introduced the first vested choir of men and boys (eight men and twelve boys), who followed in the English choral tradition of King's College, Cambridge. This vested choir remained a mainstay of the church, and in the 1890s during the rectorate of the Rev. Alexander Seabrease, it greatly increased in size. A professional choir master, Hugh McLetchie, a Scottish immigrant, was hired to train the boys and improve their performance. By the early 1900s under the leadership of organist Fred Church, the boys choir was one of the city's largest and attracted boys from across the city who were not church members. Each was paid a dime a week, and a major incentive was the offering of free time at a lake camp every summer. Church summarily by the Rev. Louis Rocca in 1923, and subsequent organists failed to inspire the boys the way Church did. By the 1930s, the boy choir was abandoned and a vested mixed choir of adult men and women replaced it. That choir still exists. A children's choir of boys and girls also existed at various times and sung with it or separate from it.


































































 

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