Petrus Veerkamp, a Frisian organ builder in French service (1)

A 1941 newspaper article makes the remarkable claim that the measurements used by the famous Parisian organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll originally came from the Frisian organ builders, the Adema brothers, and reached the French capital through their former employee Petrus Veerkamp. This assertion was presumably inspired by Frisian nationalist sentiment of the time but is entirely unfounded—in reality, the opposite was true (with Charles-Marie Philbert serving as the connecting link to the Netherlands).

Nevertheless, this claim sparked curiosity about the life and work of the little-known organ builder Petrus Veerkamp. After a brief start in the Netherlands, he spent most of his professional career in the French capital, though his personal and professional ties with the Netherlands were never entirely severed.

This first installment examines his life until his death in 1923, as well as his career in the Netherlands and France until his departure from the Mutin-Cavaillé-Coll firm in 1913. The follow-up article will explore his significance for the Cavaillé-Coll company during his two periods there, his contacts as an organ builder with the Netherlands, and his book on organ building, which took shape in his final years.