In April 1975, one of the world’s largest pipe organs moved from St. Mary’s Church in Boston to the School Sisters of Notre Dame's Our Lady of Good Counsel in Mankato, Minnesota. The organ was built in October 1877. It is the largest surviving organ in a series of organs designed and built by William A. Johnson & Sons of Westfield, Massachusetts. The company continued building organs into the early 1900s. In a 1975 article for The St. Paul Dispatch, Richard Lurth, Owner of Lurth Organ Company of Mankato, Minnesota, stated that the construction of the organ was completed in the form of a challenge after another Boston church had ordered an organ built by a European craftsman. At the time, American organ builders were upset by their work being judged as second best. Due to this, when Johnson got the order for St. Mary’s organ, he went all out to prove American organ builders should not take a back seat to anyone. For nearly a century, the pipe organ lent its voice to St. Mary’s Church.
If it wasn’t for a chain of random incidents, the historic St. Mary’s organ may have been lost forever. Lurth worked on the 50-year-old organ the sisters were using at Our Lady of Good Counsel before receiving the Johnson & Sons organ. He was well aware of the sisters declining organ, which could only be used when the church wasn’t heated. As a result, the sisters went without an organ during the winter months. During one of Lurth’s many trips, he had told the sisters it was time to get a new organ. As fate would have it, Lurth came across an article concerning the demolition of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Boston due to urban renewal and the possible loss of their organ to wreckers. Father Peter Brandenhof, Good Counsel Chaplain and President of Liturgy Commission for the Diocese of Winona, Minnesota, also read the same article. As Chaplain and an organist himself, Father Brandenhof was aware of Our Lady of Good Counsel’s pressing need for an organ and quickly teamed up with Lurth to secure the St. Mary’s organ.
To read more about this historic organ and how it was moved piece-by-piece to Mankato, you can find the whole story on Central Pacific Province website.
