Joseph Casavant (18071874) was a French Canadian manufacturer of pipe organs. Casavant was born 23 January 1807 in

Saint-Hyacinthe Saint-Hyacinthe (; French: ) is a city in southwestern Quebec east of Montreal on the Yamaska River. The population as of the 2021 Canadian census was 57,239. The city is located in Les Maskoutains Regional County Municipality of the Montérég ...

Lower Canada The Province of Lower Canada (french: province du Bas-Canada) was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (1791–1841). It covered the southern portion of the current Province of Quebec an ...

to Dominique Casavant and Marie-Desanges Coderre. Originally a

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, gr ...

, Casavant gave up his trade at age 27 to pursue classical studies in . While at Father Charles-Joseph Ducharme's college in 1834, he happened upon a

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by . The 1766 work on organ building was titled ' (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 A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

from the Ville de Laval ordering an organ. 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 Bytown is the former name of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was founded on September 26, 1826, incorporated as a town on January 1, 1850, and superseded by the incorporation of the City of Ottawa on January 1, 1855. The founding was marked by a so ...

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. While living there temporarily, he married his second wife Marie-Olive Sicard de Carufel. By the time he retired in 1866, he had built 17 organs, including the ones for the

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

cathedrals of Ottawa and Kingston, and the village church in

Mont-Saint-Hilaire Mont-Saint-Hilaire () is an off-island suburb of Montreal in southeastern Quebec, Canada, on the Richelieu River in the Regional County Municipality of La Vallée-du-Richelieu. The population as of the Canada 2011 Census was 18,200. The cit ...

. Casavant died in Saint-Hyacinthe on 9 March 1874. His work was carried on by his sons, Joseph-Claver and Samuel-Marie, under the firm name of

Casavant Frères Casavant Frères is a Canadian organ building company in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, which has been building pipe organs since 1879. As of 2014, the company has produced more than 3,900 organs. Company history Brothers Joseph-Claver (1855–1 ...

. Little of Casavant's work survives today, however the company his two sons established retains the copy of work.

References

External links

Casavant Frères
organ manufacturer website
Historica’s Heritage Minute video docudrama about Joseph Casavant.
(

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.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Casavant, Joseph 1807 births 1874 deaths People from Saint-Hyacinthe Pre-Confederation Quebec people Canadian pipe organ builders French Quebecers Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)