Relocated byLawrence Trupiano
1990

email from Scot Huntington, Oct 24, 2026:
"Acquired by me [Scot Huntington/S.L. Huntington & Co.] and moved to my shop in Nov. 2022."

Some time around 1880 the congregation sent a group to Duanesburg, about 40 miles distant, for the purpose of attending the auction of the contents of the Catherine Duane Livingston mansion (Featherstonehaugh) by her descendants, which included a fine chamber organ. Catherine died in 1852 with her property passing through her children and grandchildren. The church's intention was to bid on the organ with the purpose of purchasing it and bringing it home. We don't know what the final bid was, nor how many parties may have been bidding against them. It is believed that the organ may have originally been in a NYC residence, or it may have been original to this grand home, built ca. 1812. There is a photo of the organ, likely from the 1880s, showing the organ in-situ in the church, with its top pediment and carved decorations intact, making an already tall organ, grandly tall. The Worcester church was town down and replaced with a modern and less imposing Akron-style church in 1892. An early postcard of the organ in the new church without its top decorations is dated either 1903, 1908, or 1909. The postmark was incomplete making the exact date unclear. The pleated center screen was redone for the new location under a large window, apparently in a different color, and not nearly as nicely pleated. The organ remained in the Worcester church until it was replaced with an Estey two-manual electro-pneumatic organ, and the Jardine was either sold or given to the Presbyterian Church in Middlefield Center, about 12 miles northwest as the crow flies. The organ remained in Middlefield until that church closed in the late 1960s to become a residence, and Sidney Chase of Worcester rescued the organ and brought it to its shop. It remained there for several years before it was sold through the Organ Clearing House to a low-power classical music station in Seattle. It was on the market again by 1982 for an inflated price. It has moved four times since, most recently in 2022 when it was acquired by S.L. Huntington & Co. for relocation to another church in upstate New York, yet to be restored and installed as of this writing in 2026. Except for replacement of the Op. Diap. with a second-hand Gamba, either when it was moved to Middlefield or Seattle, the installation of an electric blower, slide tuners, and minor repairs, the organ is otherwise original. It is very likely George Jardine's oldest extant organ. With its moving history across nine homes, it is a miracle survival, and could have perished at any time.

Since the organ has been in my possession, I have had a chance to examine it more deeply. There are in fact dowels holes for mounting the pediment and shell decorations on top of the case, which were removed when the organ was moved into the new church built ca. 1892 to replace the original 1822 Greek Revival structure in Worcester. The St. Diapⁿ. Bass stop label is also original. The nameplate is brass and mounted in the center of the nameboard. The organist could not pump the organ, it was pumped by a removable handle on the right side by an assistant. The case is mahogany and mahogany veneer on pipe. The lower half of the organ, i.e. keydesk and action, windchest, and wind system is built as one super heavy unit, not easily disassembled into smaller pieces for transport. The cornice and upper case are separate pieces. The machine stop is a form of combination action: the affected sliders have a square and heavy weight on the right side whose function is to keep the stop on. The stop knobs lock in the off position, and if you are not careful in turning them off, they'll pop back out. The machine stop pedal connects on the left side of the chest sliders, momentarily pulling the sliders off when the pedal is depressed, and allowing them to open again when the pedal is release, independent of the position of the stop knob. Obviously if the stop knob had not been drawn, the machine stop pedal will not affect that stop. The purpose was for momentary echo effects. The absence of bass GG# suggests the organ would have been tuned in either some form of meantone or a well-tempered system. The pedals are permanently connected pull-downs operating on the lowest octave of the keyboard.

As of Dec.2022, the Powhatan church desired to discard the organ in favor of an imitation. The ownership of the organ was returned to the donor who originally presented it to Powhatan (in honor of his mother, the church's organist), who in turn transfered ownership to Scot Huntington, for restoration and installation in an appreciative and more permanent home. The organ was moved to storage in the SLH & Co shop in Stonington, Conn. on Dec. 2, 2022, its eighth home (!), albeit temporary.

The organ was given to the Powhatan church as a gift to honor the donor's mother, who had been the church organist for many years, and the donor lives near the organ's last home on the west coast-- which is how he came to learn of its availability in the late 1990s. The organ replaced a failed imitation organ in Powhatan, and was cherished by the donor's mother for another decade. The congregation had completely turned over in the intervening 23 years, and no one there today ever remembers hearing it, or knowing the previous organist or her family. The honored organist's successor hated the organ and tried to convince the church to wash their hands of it and take it to the dump. She persuaded them to spend a moderate 5-figure sum on another imitation. Luckily, because the organ was a gift to the church, wiser heads prevailed and they removed a back pew and moved the organ to the back of the church a decade ago, rather than taking it to the dump- but they did discard the bellows weights that had followed the organ to 7 homes over 180 years, with no record of the original wind pressure.

In the fall of 2021, the church contacted the original donor and asked him to come and get the organ as they had no use for it and wanted to reinstate the back pew. Through a happenstance word of mouth, I found out about the organ's availability and contacted the donor (I learned of the organ from Alan Laufman and had tried to buy it in 1982 from the Seattle radio station but the owner would never respond to my offer), with thanks to organbuilder Christopher Bono for alerting me to the organ and its plight.

It was arranged for me to take possession of the organ as a transfer of ownership rather than a purchase, with the proviso that I find a suitable home for it. It is my plan to install the organ in my family's ancestral church, the small and rural St. Timothy's Episcopal Church (1838), Westford, N.Y., a small farming town half-way between the organ's second and third homes, Worcester and Middlefield, and some 45 miles due west of organ's original home in Duanesburg (the original mansion is still extant.

An old stereo slide of the organ while in Worcester (ca. 1890), shows a greek-ornament crown on top of the case, which was missing by the time it was moved to Middlefield in the early 1960s. Whether this ornament was original or added later cannot be determined from the available documentation, and I have not yet found evidence of mounting holes for it on top of the case.

As part of the installation in Powhatan, Mr. Trupiano was contracted to provide a small silent electric blower and to provide a period set of replacement pipes for the missing Open Diapason. By the time the organ had arrived in Virginia, the original ivory stop labels were long missing and the organ now contains a varied assortment of pipe and reed organ labels.

Notes by Scot Huntington. -- Originally built for the Duane Mansion in Duanesburg, New York. At an unknown date late 19th century, the organ was moved to the Presbyterian church in Worcester, New York, about 35 miles distant. The organ served there until it was replaced by a two-manual Estey in the 1930s, and the organ was moved again to the Presbyterian church in Middlefield Center, about 12 miles west. In the late 1960s, that church closed and the organ was sold to radio station KRAB in Seattle, and after a period of disuse, sold to a private owner in Oregon. It was next briefly at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon until replaced in 1984 by a larger, 2-manual 19th century instrument. The organ was listed for sale with the Organ Clearing House, and finally in 1990 it was sold to an individual who gifted the organ to the Providence Presbyterian Church in Powhaton, Virginia.

The Jardine is in high Empire style and the case is veneered in mahogany and flame mahogany burl. The organ has a foot pumping pedal for the organist as well as a separate pumping handle for servants. The instrument has one octave of permanently coupled stick pedals reminiscent of the short pedals on home electronic spinet organs of the 50s and 60s. The horizontal shutters are operated by a hitchdown pedal.