History of the Tougaloo Organ

The following remarks were made at the dedication service for Woodworth Chapel of Tougaloo College, May 7, 2003

TWO ORGANS FOR TOUGALOO - A DREAM COME TRUE!

       Once upon a time, more than 100 years ago - but wait! - "Once upon a time" is how you begin a fairy tale, and this is no fairy tale - this is a dream come true! Or, as it was put in Psalm 118, "This is the Lord's doing; and it is marvellous in our eyes! This is the day which the Lord hath made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it!"

       Actually, the story of the organ - and there are really two organs involved - began more than 100 years ago. Around 1900, the music teacher at Tougaloo was Lydia Harris (Mrs. Cyrus) Hamlin. She was at the college because her husband was Dean of Students. They undoubtedly both left their marks on the college through their impact on the students they encountered, but Lydia Hamlin left an additional mark, which still stands in Woodworth Chapel. She had a brother, Murray Harris, the celebrated organbuilder from Los Angeles, and she convinced him to donate an instrument to the college This was a major gift, because organs were expensive in those days, as they are today. The Murray Harris organ, which included a room full of pipes - more than a thousand - and various mechanisms, served the college for the next forty years, up to the beginning of World War II, when the music professor, J. Orville Moseley, was drafted. What happened next is not clear, but I suspect that the organ fell into disuse. In those days there was a drive to collect scrap metal for the war effort, and pipe organs were especially vulnerable, because the pipes were mostly made of lead, which could be melted down and made into bullets. Without Professor Moseley on hand to defend the organ, it seems likely that this is what happened to the Harris organ*, because the room full of pipes disappeared, leaving only the facade, whose pipes were by then painted a dull gold color. The facade remained so until 2000, when the restoration began. Only 14 of the more than a thousand pipes in the Harris organ remain today.

       The rest of the more than 1,100 pipes - behind the facade - in the restoration came from the other organ, built by Hilborne Roosevelt in 1885, for the First Baptist Church of Nashville, TN, where it remained until 1921 when it was sold to the St. Paul's AME Church in the same city, where it served for more than thirty years. When I became aware of it, in 1952, the congregation of St. Paul's had dwindled, and was planning a move to a much smaller facility across town. They wanted to sell their original building, which seated some 1,000, as well as the organ. What they were asking for the organ was not a large sum, although the buyer had to remove it (which turned into a really big project), and my parents (I was a college student at the time) agreed to buy it, and to help me install it in their home. Later, after I moved to Jackson, I arranged some of the pipes into a small practice organ in my home here. By the late 1990's both my parents had died and the larger part of the organ was in storage, and I began to dream about a permanent home for it, and my dreams included Woodworth Chapel. When I heard that the chapel was to be restored, I contacted Dr. Rich McGinnis and Chaplain Larry Johnson. An organ committee was then formed, consisting of Dr. McGinnis, the late Dr. Ben Bailey, Chaplain Johnson, and Vice-President Kelle Menogan. An organ builder - Roy Redman, of Fort Worth, TX - was selected, and President Joe Lee signed the contract for the restoration.

       I would like to thank the organ committee, and Dr. Lee, for their part in this project. I also am grateful to my parents, Glenn and Helen Townsend Gentry, and to my wife, Betty McInnis Gentry, for providing a home for the Roosevelt organ for almost 50 years. Further, I thank President Hogan for making possible the dedicatory recital, featuring concert organist Mickey Thomas Terry, to be held on Saturday of Founder's Day weekend (October 18, 2003, at 3:00 P.M.).

              Two other details remain: first, the facade was restored by Sharon Redman, whose husband, Roy, was the organ builder. There were two layers of paint covering the restored design. Second, there was an unexpected connection between the Roosevelt organ and the college. Hilborne Roosevelt, the organ builder, was first cousin to Theodore Roosevelt, President of the U.S. One of Theodore's direct descendants, Michael Roosevelt, served as a member of the Tougaloo College Board of Trustees. So it is a small, interconnected world we live in!

       Finally, I am reminded of the last line from that great old spiritual, "There Is a Balm in Gilead". That line goes "And then the Holy Spirit restores my soul again!" I believe with all my heart that with the restoration of Woodworth Chapel, we are seeing before our very eyes the restoration of the soul of Tougaloo College!

- Glenn A. Gentry

*Actually that is not what happened; later research showed that the organ lasted for several years after the end of the war, and suggests that the organ was scrapped when an electronic instrument salesman promised "something better" which, of course, he couldn't deliver.