Elias Hook (1805 - 1881), George Hook (1807 - 1880), Frank Hastings (1853 - 1924)
When Unity Church first opened it's doors, the public viewed a spectacular set of organ pipes to the right of the pulpit. Rich in color, ornate in style and beautiful in symmetry, this organ was a focal point of the sanctuary. Designed by the E. & G.G. Hook and Hastings Company, the organ commenced Unity Church's long history of music excellence.
When the church interior was redesigned in the 1890's, the organ pipes were hidden from view.
Oliver Ames’s selection of an organ builder was as careful as his choice of an architect for the new church. On October 22, 1874, the Hook brothers responded to Oliver’s request for a new organ. E. & G.G. Hook and Hastings were the largest and most successful organ company in America. In 1875, the forty organs they built included a fifty stop organ for Yale University, a fifty one stop giant for Unity Church in Chicago, a forty stop gem for Fall River’s Central Congregational Church and an 83 stop mammoth for Boston’s hundred yard long Holy Cross Cathedral. They also shipped a twelve stop two manual organ to Bethel Union Church in Honolulu. In June of 1875, the carted the North Easton organ up from the railroad depot and erected it in its present location at a cost of two thousand dollars. The organ was originally a focal point on the right front of the church with its stenciled diapason pipes in a black walnut case. The bellows was powered by a hand pump which custodian Raymouth G. Randall or a boy pumped for $25.00 a year.
The 1875 Hook and Hastings Organ was enlarged and electrified by the Hook and Hastings Company which within a year succumbed to the depression after a hundred years of organ building and 2,214 organs. The cost was $3,000. The console was moved to its present location with the manual keyboards enlarged from 56 to 61 notes each. The pedal board was enlarged from 27 to 32 notes and of the course, the corresponding pipes were added. A cable was installed under the floor containing the wires connecting the keys to the pipes. New stops were added to swell and great divisions. Clifford Morse played a recital on the new organ on December 4, 1932.
Elias and George Greenleaf Hook
Elias and George Hook were the sons of a
well-known cabinet maker from Salem, Massachusetts. Elias apprenticed with the
organ builder William Goodrich in 1821, and his younger brother George followed
suit in the same firm in 1823. In 1827, the two brothers founded their own
company, which evolved in the following years into one of the leading organ
building firms in New England.
Elias Hook was responsible for the technical design of the instruments as well
as the business side of the firm; George Hook was responsible for the voicing of
the instruments, and was himself an organist. In 1855, Frank Hastings entered
into the firm and became a partner in 1870.
It is important to observe that the Hook brothers, from the mid-1850's on,
changed their style of organ building, which had previously been English
influenced, to a type of design influenced by the middle European builders of
the era. The technical and tonal qualities of the Hook brothers' organs were
similar to those of the instruments produced by Friedrich Ladegast and Eberhard
Friedrich Walcker, and were widely praised by contemporary sources.
http://www.hook-orgel.de/e1hookorgel.html#gebrueder_hook
Frank Hastings joined the firm of E. & G.G. Hook as a draftsman when he was still a teenager. He quickly became one of the most valued members of the firm, was made a partner, and bought the shares of the founding brothers after their deaths. Under his direction the company continued to be known as one of the country’s premier organbuilders, and his legacy is preserved in hundreds of instruments still extant and in regular use.
http://www.organclearinghouse.com/instr/detail.php?instr=2119