Wesley Chapel Specification

Elkton, Maryland, a city of some 13,000 people, sits on Chesapeake Bay near the Delaware border. It dates from the 1700s and was a strategic crossroads during the Revolutionary War. Washington and Lafayette passed through it frequently, and it is very near the spot where the British landed for their march on Philadelphia. The Wesley Methodist Society formed its congregation there in 1797 and, in 1830, the Reverend William Ryder laid the cornerstone of a new building in which to hold the society’s services. Wesley Chapel seats about fifty, and is one of the oldest rural chapels still in use in the area.

Mr. Glen Arrants remembers how his mother served as church organist for almost fifty years. She played on an early 20th century Möller organ, which took up a considerable space in the tiny building. In the mid 1990s, the chapel went through a complete restoration and the Möller was replaced with an Estey reed organ.

The congregation built a larger church on Justice Way in Elkton in the 1980s, so the chapel is used only for the 8:30 service on Sunday mornings and for a late candlelight service on Christmas Eve. Now, however, the hymns are led by the full-throated sound of real pipes. Fratelli Ruffatti designed a historically-inspired, self-contained mechanical action pipe organ with one 56-note manual and a 27-note pedalboard, which charmed members of the church. The organ was installed in June of 2007.

Looking at the new instrument, we find some interesting details. First, it works using suspended mechanical action, which gives the player more control over the way the pipes speak. Second, a couple of the manual stops are split into two sections. This means that not only can each rank be played over the entire keyboard, but that one stop can be playing as a solo in the treble end of the keyboard while another stop is playing by itself in the bass end for accompaniment, almost as if this were a two-manual organ.

Although the organ has been in use since its completion, Wesley Chapel celebrated the dedication of its new instrument on Sunday, October 13th, when Don McFarland of R. A. Daffer Church Organs, Inc., presented a recital at 3.00 in the afternoon to a standing-room-only crowd.