Augustin Oestreich

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Augustin Oestreich (born December 1, 1807 in Oberbimbach , † after 1855 in Ashland, Pennsylvania , USA) was a German organ builder . He emigrated to Pennsylvania, USA in 1855 .

family

Augustin Oestreich was the youngest of three sons of the organ builder Johann Georg Oestreich (born February 2, 1770 in Oberbimbach; † February 28, 1858 ibid) from his marriage to Margarete, born in 1798. Fist. All three sons also became organ builders and were thus members of the fourth of five generations of organ builders in the Oestreich family .

After the death of his brother Adam Joseph (1799–1843) he married his widow Margarete geb. Gärtner (1805–1857) and thus took care of his and his brother's children Monika (* 1829), Emil Michael (* 1832), Maximilian (* 1834), Maurus (* 1836), Mathilde (* 1838) and Damian (* 1843). In 1855 he emigrated to the USA with two of his four step-sons, Maximilian (Max) and Maurus (Morris, Maurice). They settled there in Ashland, which was founded in 1850 and incorporated in 1857, in Pennsylvania and ran an organ and wood construction workshop in neighboring Pottsville . Damian (Daniel) Oestreich followed them in 1859.

Act

Augustin Oestreich learned from his father and worked in his father's workshop in Oberbimbach. He and his two brothers, Adam Joseph and Michael (1802–1838), were involved in their father's construction of the organ in the church of St. Laurentius in Großkrotzenburg from 1826–1828 . In addition to many organ repairs, Augustin Oestreich also carried out some new buildings. In 1832 he built a second manual in the organ in the collegiate church of St. John the Baptist in Amöneburg , and in 1838 he took part in his father's organ building in Michelsrombach . In 1844 he completed the organ that his late brother Adam Joseph had started in Oberbimbach. In 1845 he built the organ in the Protestant village church of Ützhausen , which is still almost unchanged today, and from 1844–1847 the one with 23 registers in the Johannesberg provost , the disposition of which had been designed by his brother. His last organ built in Germany was the one built in 1852 in the Michaelskirche in Fulda , but due to inadequacies it was replaced three years later by a new one by his nephew and stepson Emil Michael Oestreich. It is not yet known whether he still built organs in the USA.

successor

His step-sons Maximilian (Max) and Maurus (Morris) took over the workshop in Pottsville ("Oestreich & Brother Organ & Melodion Manufactory", Pottsville, Pa., Max Oestreich, proprietor) and built organs, houses and, since they are in the middle of a coal mining area found, finally also pit punches and coal breakers .

Several organs built by them are known: the organs in the Columbia Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and the organs in the St. Bonifacius Church in Saint Clair and in other Catholic churches in Pottsville and the surrounding area came from Maurus Oestreich . Only the organ in the Catholic St. John Baptist Church in Pottsville, completed in 1872, is known by Max Oestreich. But it was probably also Max who produced the organ in the first First Presbyterian Church in Pottsville, built in 1838–1842 and replaced by a new building inaugurated in 1880 at the end of the 1870s.

literature

  • Gottfried Rehm : The organ builder family Oestreich. In: Acta Organologica . Vol. 7, 1973, pp. 37-66.
  • Gottfried Rehm: Contributions to the history of the organ building family Oestreich. In: Acta Organologica . Vol. 21, 1990, pp. 55-99.
  • Gottfried Rehm: Musikantenleben. Contributions to the music history of Fulda and the Rhön in the 18th and 19th centuries. Parzeller, Fulda 1997, ISBN 3-7900-0282-8 (= publication of the Fulda History Association ).

Web links

  • Gottfried Rehm: The organ builder family Oestreich. In: The Johann-Markus-Oestreich-Organ (I / 10, 1799) in the Evangelical Church of Fraurombach. Restoration documentation, created by Orgelbau Andreas Schmidt, 2014, p. 4–10 (here p. 8).

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Today a borough in Schuylkill County .
  2. ↑ Mathilde Oestreich also went to Pottsville; her tombstone is in the local St. Boniface cemetery. [1]
  3. ^ The organ portrait (105): The Oestreich organ in the Ev. Village church, Ützhausen on YouTube
  4. ↑ Prospectus received. The organ was rebuilt in 1927 with 17 registers by Gebr. Späth Orgelbau .
  5. ↑ The Tracker, Journal of the Organ Historical Society , Volume 26, Number 4, Summer 1982, pp. 26–29 (here: 29)
  6. ↑ Borough in Schuylkill County not far north of Pottsville.
  7. ↑ Anthony FC Wallace: A Workingman's Town (Chapter 3 from: St. Clair: A Nineteenth-Century Coal Town's Experience with a Disaster-Prone Industry. Cornell University Press, Ithaca & London, 1987 (digital-reprint at Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Exploring Diversity in Pennsylvania History, Immigrants in Coal Country), pp. 46 & 54) , accessed December 11, 2018.
  8. ^ History of Schuylkill County, PA, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers. WW Munsell & Co., New York, 1881, p. 285
  9. ^ The First Presbyterian Church of Pottsville, Penna. In: Historical Society of Schuylkill County, Volume IV, Pottsville, Pa., 1912, pp. 394–406 (here: 405)
personal data
SURNAME Austria, Augustine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German organ builder
DATE OF BIRTH December 1, 1807
PLACE OF BIRTH Oberbimbach
DATE OF DEATH after 1855
Place of death Ashland, Pennsylvania, USA