This is a story about a hulking old organ, its place historically in a Quaker house of worship, the protest of one old Quaker and our efforts to move it out almost a hundred years later. But first, some history:
Quakers and Music
Over the past 150 years, worshipping in silence, with contributions of vocal testimony of Friends who felt 
moved by the Spirit to rise and speak out of the silence, was the predominant practice of worship within most New England Quaker meetinghouses. The so-called “programmed” worship, which featured less silent worship and more music, was usually accompanied by sermons that were delivered by pastors. Some Friends meetings, like my own in Westport, have had a history of incorporating both styles of worship down through the decades. Both of these methods of corporate worship, we hope, can and do bring people closer to an experience of the divine.
Early Friends believed that spending time practicing and playing musical instruments, including listening to music, was a frivolous waste of time and was strictly frowned upon by elders. An 1809 book of discipline for New England Quakers warned Friends not to frequent “stage-plays, horse-races, music, dancing, or any such vain sports and pastimes.” While we are certainly far removed from those admonitions today, it’s not hard to understand how one simple old organ back then, plunked in a Quaker meetinghouse of all places, would be an immediate affront to the Quaker tradition and practice of the day. (Consider, if you will, the classic novel, Friendly Persuasion, 1945, by Jessamyn West, or the movie made of it in 1956, in which Quaker musicians hid their instruments from meeting elders.)
The Music of Protest
By design, early Friends Meetinghouses were simple, unadorned and practical in construction, consisting of simple benches, plain unadorned walls and windows and little else. But sometime around 1915, that all changed in Westport when a prominent Quaker family in Westport, MA, bequeathed their family organ (which meant they no longer wanted it!) to Westport Friends Meeting. So benches were rearranged and in it came, eventually coming to rest for the next eighty years at the front of our simple little meetinghouse.
At the time, Samuel Frances Manchester, a member and elder within Westport Friends Meeting, launched a one-man protest against the arrival of this ungodly music machine. Friend Samuel declared, and with considerable fanfare, that as long as that “Devil’s chest of whistles” remained in his meetinghouse, that he would not darken its doorway with his presence until it was removed. The protesting Friend, having dropped off his wife from the family buggy for worship, lead his horse and carriage to the nearby carriage shed to worship alone and away from whatever racket that the organ might make. And while there were certainly other members of the meeting who didn’t like the organ’s new place and prominence during Sunday worship, they tolerated it, with many eventually welcoming the addition of music to the worship service as well.
Changing Notes
After several years, electricity came through and the organ was fitted with electric bellows, replacing the standard foot-pumped mechanism. In time, new hymnals were bought and a whole new generation of Friends not only tolerated music within their worship services, but grew to expect it, also. As for Samuel Frances Manchester, who would have no part of organ music during a Quaker meeting for worship, we cannot say with certainly how long his protest lasted, but we know that the old organ certainly outlived him!
Apparently Friends weren’t singing loud enough because sometime during the late 1950’s large bass speakers and chimes were installed in the meetinghouse balcony, which were intended to add richer tones and increased volume whenever the organ was played. An electrified organ also meant that a large, black, two inch cable carrying a maze of individual wiring now snaked its way from the organ, alongside the floor, up the wall, marring and gouging its way through 175 year old sills, wall boards and horsehair plaster. Everyone agreed that the cable was ugly, but no one ever dared to touch it, let along reroute it. Anyone walking behind the organ itself, and whomever stepped forward to play it had to step over or walk around the electrical cable as well. But hey, this was music, progress, and these inconveniences were, it seems, gladly tolerated. The only Friends who sat in the benches behind the organ were visitors who didn’t realize that by doing so meant they couldn’t see anyone, or, the occasional member who didn’t want to be seen by anyone, anyway.
Over the next several decades two things happened. Replacement parts for the organ became hard to find, and, the Meeting was slowly moving away from programmed to silent worship practices. Eventually the organ was declared unusable and not worth fixing. It’s only use was a place to set fresh flowers on during Sunday worship or memorial services. Still, the organ sat unused, silent, and in the middle of things for another fifteen years, until, that is, we learned that the entire meetinghouse floor had rotted out with age and needed to be replaced. Contractors told us that everything, old carpeting, floorboards and floor joists, including the old organ had to be removed before construction could begin.
Cutting the Chord
Once the benches were out, the task of disconnecting the old organ from its connecting electrical cable fell to me and another Friend. (Payback for being on the property committee!) We soon learned that all of the wiring coming to and going from the organ itself had been hard-soldered into place, making it impossible to just unscrew anything. Now we realized why this old hulk had not been tampered with down through the years. Our only recourse was to cut through the large black electrical cable, which also meant that the antique organ would likely never return to the meetinghouse. My usual cutters weren’t big enough to slice through the cable. I had to return later with the next size up. When the moment came to actually do the deed, it felt like we were about to sever a piece of Meeting history forever. My friend would have no part in cutting the cord and said, “Here Kevin, you do it.” Which I did.
Now, with the thick black electrical cable removed, the only thing left to do was haul the behemoth away. It took six grown men, three on a side, (pallbearers?) to heft and haul the thing outside and to a nearby shed. And with all probability, we later realized, the old organ landed just feet away from the very spot where, Friend Samuel, nearly a century before had retreated to, protesting the “Devil’s Chest of Whistles.”
