Moravians first brought the organ into North Carolina for use in
worship services. Joseph Ferdinand Bulitschek, a Salem
cabinetmaker and millwright, built two early organs for Moravian
congregations in the Wachovia settlement. Bulitschek's organ for
Bethania, built in 1773, was in use until destroyed by fire in
1942. Other eighteenth-century organ builders included Jacob
Loesch of Bethania and a Mr. Stirewalt of Rowan County . Two of
ten surviving organs by the renowned Moravian organ builder
David Tannenberg  of Pennsylvania are housed at Old Salem. The
first was installed in 1798. New York's Henry Erben, touted as
America's premier organ builder of the nineteenth century, built
five organs in North Carolina by the mid-1840s. Christ Episcopal
Church  in Elizabeth City purchased one of Erben's organs in
1845. Theater organs, pipe organs with tremulant and percussion
sounds made by wooden pipes, were manufactured in the early
twentieth century for use in accompanying silent movies. Robert
Morton built theater