Well, my crew and I just got back home from Hannibal, Missouri,
after spending yesterday and most of today dismantling and moving the
huge Aeolian Orchestrelle player reed organ purchased by Mark Twain
for his New York Apartment.  Several years ago I moved it from the Sam
Clemens boyhood home museum building to the new Mark Twain Museum two
blocks away.  I got the call Friday morning to move it to the second
floor of the museum just to be safe as they watch the water rise on
the Mississippi a hundred feet from the back door of the museum.

In 1993 that museum building was under 9 feet of water.  Since then
they have built a taller levee but the prognosticators have called for
water to be within a foot of the top of this new taller levee in a few
days and the curators called and asked me to drop everything and move
the organ for safety's sake.

To move this instrument it had to be dismantled almost completely
and removed from its case to move it into the elevator and through
a 34-inch wide doorway to its new safer room.

The organ is a Style Y Orchestrelle and I think the largest model
built.  It was voiced and signed in 1903 by Mr. A. B. Chase who later
had pianos and organs with his name on them.  It was built in the
Vocalion factory for the Aeolian Corp. who put in the player system
and marketed these instruments.

Under lovely, sunny, cloudless skies Saturday afternoon we noticed
that the river had risen about 4-6 feet since Friday night, when two
railroad lines and a kid's playground had been dry but were now totally
missing under the Big Muddy's water.  The river is expected to crest
this Wednesday when the Wisconsin rains reach Hannibal.

We captured much of the organ move on video and still photos and
I hope to put together some YouTube videos and a web page on this
organ soon to perhaps promote the public donating money toward the
restoration of this marvelous instrument.  It is a national treasure
but it sits silent because at the age of 105 years old it is in dire
need of complete restoration.

I found it very frustrating to dismantle old parts and not be able to
restore those parts before I put them back together in the reassembly
of the organ in its new location.  New pouches, hoses, and bellows
cloth were installed in 1966 but that has failed by now, leaving it
silent.

This is the museum's web page:  http://www.marktwainmuseum.org/

Doug L. Bullock