Joseph Casavant
Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox person
Joseph Casavant (Template:IPA; 1807Template:Dash1874) was a French Canadian manufacturer of pipe organs.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Casavant was born 23 January 1807 in Saint-Hyacinthe, Lower Canada to Dominique Casavant and Marie-Desanges Coderre.<ref name="casavant.ca"/><ref name="biographi.ca"/> Originally a blacksmith, Casavant gave up his trade at age 27 to pursue classical studies in Template:Lang. While at Father Charles-Joseph Ducharme's college in 1834, he happened upon a treatise by Template:Lang. The 1766 work on organ building was titled Template:Lang (The Art of Organ Building). He subsequently used it to restore the unfinished and abandoned school's organ. News spread throughout the region with the vestry from the Ville de Laval ordering an organ.<ref name="canadianencyclopedia.com_1"/> He set up business in Saint-Hyacinthe and received his first contract in 1840.
In 1850, he received an order for a church organ from Bytown, Canada West. While living there temporarily, he married his second wife Marie-Olive Sicard de Carufel.<ref name="biographi.ca"/>
By the time he retired in 1866, he had built 17 organs, including the ones for the Catholic cathedrals of Ottawa and Kingston, and the village church in Mont-Saint-Hilaire.<ref name="canadianencyclopedia.com_1"/>
Casavant died in Saint-Hyacinthe on 9 March 1874.<ref name="casavant.ca"/><ref name="biographi.ca"/> His work was carried on by his sons, Joseph-Claver and Samuel-Marie, under the firm name of Casavant Frères.<ref name="canadianencyclopedia.com_1"/> Little of Casavant's work survives today,<ref name="canadianencyclopedia.com_1"/> however the company his two sons established retains the copy of Template:Lang work.<ref name="casavant.ca"/>
References
External links
- Casavant Frères organ manufacturer website
- Historica's Heritage Minute video docudrama about Joseph Casavant. (Adobe Flash Player.)