Ernest M. Skinner Company
Opus 184, 1911

Updated through online information from Joshua (September 19, 2024): I visited the organ and heard from others in the Harvard Organ Society. This organ is no longer playable, though it is still there.

Updated through online information from Scot Huntington.

Updated through online information from Scot Huntington: The organ was installed new in the second-floor chapel, concurrent with the construction of the Divinity School edifice. It was in very poor condition when it was superceded by an 11-rank, 2-manual and pedal mechanical-action organ built in 1984 by D. Jacques Way & Zuckermann Harpsichords of Stonington, Connecticut. The organ narrowly escaped being scrapped at that time, when a number of organists and organbuilders, including myself, wrote to University Organist John Ferris asking that the organ be left in place even if unused. The organ is contained in a small and shallow chamber on the front right side of the rectangular room. A facade of lacquered, natural finish zinc basses with gilded mouths, is composed of both dummy pipes and the speaking basses of the leathered Great Open Diapason 8'. The Swell and Choir are duplexed and contained in a single expression box. The chapel is the site of the famed "sermon competitions", and at the time of the organ's last regular use, the chapel was used weekly for Wednesday noon chapel services accompanied by the Harvard University organist. With the retirement of Harvard University organist John Ferris, that duty was transferred to the Divinity School Chaplain's office. Neither organ has been in use since 2004, when services became more non-denominational in nature and the use of an organ during worship services became considered anachronistic. The Zuckermann organ has recently been offered for sale, but hope remains for the eventual restoration of the Skinner. In the intervening decades, occasional malfunctioning of a very antiquated steam-heating system has damaged both instruments, completely silencing the once marginally-functional Skinner.

Identified through information adapted from E. M. Skinner/Aeolian-Skinner Opus List, by Sand Lawn and Allen Kinzey (Organ Historical Society, 1997), and included here through the kind permission of Sand Lawn: Extant.