Simmons & McIntire
1850ca.

St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church

225 Dorchester Street
Boston (South Boston), MA, US

Instrument ID: 3140 ● Builder ID: 5764 ● Location ID: 3003
⬆️ These are database IDs that may change. Don't use as academic reference.

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Plenum Organ Company

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STOPLISTS

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CONSOLES

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Builder: Unknown
Position: Unknown
Design: Unknown
Pedalboard Type: Unknown
Features:
2 Manuals 3 Divisions26 StopsMechanical (Unknown) Key Action

Stop Layout: Unknown
Expression Type: Unknown
Combination Action: Unknown
Control System: Unknown or N/A

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DETAILS

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This instrument is: Not Extant and Not Playable in this location

Database Manager on August 23rd, 2016:

Updated through online information from Scot Huntington.
If the ca. 1850 construction date is correct, the builder attribution is not. The firm in question was organized as Simmons & McIntyre until 1851, only in partnership with George Fisher from 1856-1857, thereafter known as Simmons & Wilcox until about 1861, and W.B.D. Simmons thereafter until 1876. The database record is confusing as to whether Joel Butler rebuilt the organ in 1871 independently, or as a subcontractor to J.H. Wilcox & Co. The organ was left unplayable in 1979, after an aborted attempt to electrify it by an unskilled itinerant.

The church was closed by the diocese in 2004, and the pipework salvaged by A. David Moore in 2014 shortly before the church building was converted to exclusive condominiums. Architect Patrick Keeley's large structure was completed in 1876, raising the question whether the rebuild by Wilcox/Butler et. al. involved moving the organ here second hand or enlarging an original installation from the former building? The original Bullfinch chapel constructed in 1818 would not have been large enough to accommodate such a massive instrument.


Database Manager on October 30th, 2004:

Rebuilt Butler (?) & Willcox 1870. Electrified 1979

Related Instrument Entries: J. H. Willcox & Co. (Opus 25, 1871)

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