Pipe Organ Database

This entry describes an original installation of a new pipe organ. Identified by James R.Stettner, using information from this web site: http://www.fpcphila.org/organ/. -- According to the church website, "W.B.D. Simmons of Boston provided the first instrument at a cost of $13,000. Contemporary accounts of the dedication on October 12, 1872, describe the organ standing in the gallery at the north end of the church while worship was conducted at the opposite end of the nave. This orientation of music and worship was the usual plan in Philadelphia churches of that day. The organ, with 44 stops and 2896 pipes was in two sections, the great and swell compartments being on the west, and the choir and pedal on the east side of the 5-lance Gothic window in the Walnut Street wall. The case was designed by the architect, Henry Augustus Sims, who also designed the church building itself."