FORT SCOTT - The new owner of the Old Congregational Church is looking for an organ, and she is hoping someone in Bourbon County knows where it is.
Angela Cutbill, who bought the 1873 church at 502 S. National Ave. in August, said the antique pump organ her great-grandmother played there is no longer in the building. Her parents, Ron and the late Barbara Wood, donated it back to the church in 1991, and it was still there when the sanctuary was photographed in 2004.
At some point after that, it left, and no one Cutbill or the Monitor has spoken to can say when, how or where.
The only organ in the church today is an upright at the left end of the stage that Cutbill estimates dates from about 1950. It appears in the 2004 photograph as well, in the same spot.
Cutbill's great-grandfather, L.G. Wood., was the minister of the Brethren congregation that occupied the building from 1920 until his death in 1937. His wife, Anna, continued to play the now-missing organ in the years that followed.
When the Brethren moved out in 1978, they offered the organ to Ron Wood, who had grown up in the congregation, and he took it home. Cutbill said her mother Barbara then had it restored.
"She had it restored, not just the wood. She had it restored to what played, and so it was a beautiful organ," Cutbill said. "And that was one of the things I wanted to see."
In November 1991, the Woods gave the organ to the Bourbon County Historical Preservation Association, which had bought the church in 1979. The Morning Sun of Pittsburg covered the donation as an early Christmas present, timed for the association's Homes for the Holidays tour that December, and photographed the organ in the sanctuary.
"I can remember my grandmother playing that organ years ago, when I was a little kid," Ron Wood told the paper. "I think it probably goes back 100 years."
He said his first thought when his wife suggested the donation was that "it means too much to me."
"It makes a lot of sense," he said. "It's back where it belongs and where more people can appreciate it."
Kathy Reed, then the association's executive director, told the Morning Sun she hoped the organ would be played at some of the dozen or so weddings held at the church each year.
"I think the Historic Preservation Association should be very proud and honored to receive the original organ that was used here," Reed said.
The 2004 photograph, which Cutbill provided, shows both instruments in place: the pump organ with its tall carved rack to the right side of the stage, and the upright that remains there today on the left side of the stage. It is the last record Cutbill has found of the missing organ in the building.
Cutbill said she used to tease her mother about the gift.
"I'd say, 'You gave my organ away,' and she'd say, 'Well, you know,'" Cutbill said. "And I'd say, 'Mom, it's okay. The organ is where it should be. It's here. It should be played.'"
In the search for the organ, every lead so far has come back empty. One story Cutbill was told had the organ moved to the old train depot for storage, where it was damaged and later auctioned.
Brian Allen, the Historic Preservation Association board member who handled the sale of the church to Cutbill, said the organ was already gone when he joined the board about 10 years ago. Some items stored at the depot did suffer water damage, he said, but he personally cataloged everything stored there, and no organ was among it.
The auction half of the story also fell apart. The rumored buyer, Rich Aydelotte told the Monitor that while his late father had once restored and later traded away a local historic organ, it was from the former Sisters of Mercy convent, not the church.
That leaves a window of roughly 2004 to 2016 with no record of the organ leaving, and no indication of whether it went out the door on its own or alongside other items. The association used the building for storage for much of that time, with items belonging to several local groups moving in and out, Cutbill said.
Nothing the Monitor has found suggests the organ was taken improperly.
The 1991 article does not mention any condition on the gift, but Cutbill said her father remembers one.
"My dad has always maintained the terms of the donation were that if the church closed up again, they got the organ back," she said.
Asked Sunday whether she hoped to recover the organ or simply wanted to know where it is, Cutbill answered by text message.
"I'd buy it back for sure. But I just want to know what happened to it," she said. "I want to find out for my mom especially. She sent it to KC to have it professionally restored. And she was happy to send it back to the church."
Barbara Wood died in January 2023.
Anyone who has information on the organ after 2004 or where it might be located can can contact the Monitor at nick@bourboncountymonitor.com. The Monitor will not publish a name without permission.
The full 1991 Morning Sun article on the Wood's donation of the organ back to the church is linked below.
