Pipe Organ Database

For further reading:

• Stephen L. Pinel, Organbuilding along the Erie and Chenango Canals: Alvinza and George N. Andrews of Utica, New York (Richmond, VA: OHS Press, 2010).

From the OHS PC Database, derived from A Guide to North American Organbuilders, revised edition, by David H. Fox (Organ Historical Society, 1997). -

Born April 1, 1799 in in Stephentown, Rensselaer County, New York; father of George N. Andrews; died October 8, 1862 in Utica, New York.

Alvinza Andrews established his firm in Waterville, New York, 1834; he relocated to either Sangerfield, or Utica,* New York, 1854, building both reed and pipe organs. He became partner with John Gale Marklove, 1853/1854-c. 1857. Andrews retired c. 1857, and died October 8, 1862.

Staff: George N. Andrews; Granville H. Benedict; Thomas Hauley; Henry T. Levi; John G. Marklove; (Jacob Schwenk?); (John Smith?); Julius Wolf.

* Sangerfield can refer to the town (a sub-division of the county in New York) or an unincorporated community within the town (the Hamlet of Sangerfield). Waterville is an incorporated municipality (the Village of Waterville) on the border of the town of Sangerfield. If Sangerfield is taken to refer to the hamlet, then he moved about five miles southwest of Waterville.
    However, Fox lists Orpha Ochse, The History of the Organ in the United States as one of his sources, and Ochse states Andrews moved from Waterville to Utica in 1854 (Ochse, History, 168), a distance of 15 miles to the northeast. All sources agree that Andrews left Waterville in 1854 and moved somewhere else within Oneida county, New York. -Ed.

Sources:

• Orpha Ochse, The History of the Organ in the United States (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1975), 168-169.
• Stephen L. Pinel, "Organbuilders and Their Families: in the Population Schedules of the Federal and State Census Surveys", The Tracker 32:1 (Richmond, Va.: Organ Historical Society, 1988), 21. 
• Stephen Pinel.