Cats in the Mews: February 17, 1902
A seemingly uncanny mystery of the church organ, which had puzzled the organist and boys’ choir of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration for more than a week, was solved on this day in 1902.
The mystery began during Sunday morning services on February 9. According to news reports, the singing of the processional had just ended, when a mournful wail came from inside the organ. The church then went completely silent, as members of the boys’ choir, startled by the sudden noise, looked about in wonder.
As the World News reported, “Then, in the hush which had fallen upon choir and congregation, the wail was repeated, its sorrowfulness deepened, its notes more weird: Me-ow-wow-wow-me-ow-e-e!” Clearly it rang through the silent church, then, dying away, ended in what sounded like a low sob. The organist, sitting motionless on his stool, contemplated with amazement the keys.”
Recovering from their astonishment, the members of the choir and the congregation began to relax and settle back into the services. They theorized that something had gotten twisted inside the organ, which had caused the wailing sounds.
No one gave the church organ another thought until a few days later, during the Ash Wednesday evening services.
On that Wednesday night, Reverend Stuart Crockett was speaking when once again, the strange sounds emitted from the organ. This time, the parishioners could make out a clear and plaintive “Me-ow!” coming from inside the instrument. A few moments later, a large Maltese cat, looking frightened and worried, walked out of the organ, to the great astonishment of the organist and the intense enjoyment of the boys in the choir.
John Thompson, the organ blower, tried to catch the cat, but she crawled far back into the church organ, where he couldn’t reach her. The cat remained hidden while the services continued.
During Sunday services a few days later, the cat reappeared during Rev. Crockett’s sermon. But this time, another chorus of tiny meows from inside the organ interrupted the services, much to the delight of the boys in the choir.
At last, the mystery was solved. The mother cat had apparently selected the organ as a home for her litter of kittens. “It appeared that when the organ had been played the music had frightened the mother cat, who, fearful for the safety of her young, had lifted up her not very tuneful voice in distress.”
Following another failed attempt by the rector, the sexton, the superintendent of the Sunday school, and the choir boys to lure the cat family out of the organ, a pipe was removed from the organ to get better access to the felines.
According to the New York Herald, organ blower Thompson wanted to remove the cats from the church, but several parishioners thought their appearance was an omen of good luck. Others noted that the church would be moving to a new location in the spring, so it would be a shame to disturb the feline family until completion of the new edifice.
According to the New York Sun, the sexton moved the cat family into their temporary new home in the basement of the church.
Cats in Church Organs
Incidentally, this wasn’t the first or only cat family to take up residence in a church organ. In 1899, The New York Times wrote, “An altogether unaccountable tendency on the part of domestic cats to get into organs, to remain in them regardless of hunger and thirst, to so dispose their bodies as to render futile the combined efforts of organ blower or organist to evoke music from the instrument, appears to have developed in widely separated sections of the country.”
The article continued: “Of course the builders of church organs will be prepared to guard against an epidemic tendency on the part of house cats to wander into church organs. It is not for laymen, to whom organ construction is a mystery, to venture to suggest the devices for excluding cats from these musical instruments or for apprehending them as to make their wanderings powerless to thwart the efforts of blowers and players.”
Church of the Transfiguration
The Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration started out in 1894 as a mission of the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City (the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island). The first church was established under the direction of the Rev. Edward Helm.
For the first three years, the church held services in the parlor of a house owned by H.O. Benisch, who had a large monument and stone cutting establishment on Jamaica Avenue near Crescent Street. Although the congregation tried to get its own church, it was very difficult to prove to the bishop that a larger church was needed for the sparsely developed Cypress Hills neighborhood.
In 1897, the church purchased a 35- by 60-foot building on Fulton Street between Hemlock Street and Railroad Avenue (Railroad Avenue was renamed Autumn Avenue in 1917). This building, which could hold 500 parishioners, was constructed in 1895 for the Fulton Street Baptist mission (a branch of the Marcy Avenue Baptist Church), which had decided not to renew its two-year lease. The dedication ceremony took place on June 6, 1897, under the direction of Rev. Canon Henry J. Bryan (rector) and Thomas E. Swan (resident minister).
It was here that the cat family lived inside the church’s pipe organ, which had been presented to the mission shortly after it moved into the Fulton Street building.
In 1901, plans to build a new church on Euclid and Ridgewood Avenues were thwarted by Rev. Nelson R. Boss of the nearby Trinity Episcopal Church on Schenck and Arlington Avenues. Having already lost about 40 families who had moved out of the district, Rev. Boss was afraid that a second church so close by would take away even more parishioners from his church. The Diocese of Long Island sustained the objection.
Two years later, the parish purchased five full lots at the intersection of Ridgewood and Railroad (Autumn) Avenues. The cornerstone for the new church building, pictured above, was laid on August 5, 1904. The new edifice, which cost $8,500, was erected as a memorial to the late Reverend Abram Newkirk Littlejohn, the first Bishop of Long Island.
George W. Earle, a renowned organ builder from Hempstead, Long Island, was hired to move the organ from the old church on Fulton Street to the new church on Ridgewood Avenue. I do not know if the cat family was also invited to move into the new building.
In 1910, the church purchased a new organ that had belonged to General Daniel E. Sickles. The church paid $300 for the organ and $500 to have it moved from his house at 23 Fifth Avenue and set up inside the church.
According to the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, the church remained at this location until 1971. The building was occupied by a Russian Orthodox Church for some time, and later, during the 1970s and 1980s, it served as the Cypress Hills Community Center. Today it is home to Iglesia Pentecostal Monde.
