Note: Not extant. Not playable. (in this location)
2005-02-15 - Identified from company publications as edited and expanded in <i>The Hook Opus List 1829-1935</i>, ed. William T. Van Pelt (Organ Historical Society, 1991). -Database Manager
2023-05-20 - Replaced Hook Opus 47. Unknown whether any portion of this organ was retained in the new instrument. from St. John's organ history: In 1861, the purchase of a new organ, Hook’s Opus 295 of two manuals and thirty stops, provided an opportunity to move the instrument back to where some felt it gave better service. The Courant editorialized in May of 1862 that “we are glad to hear that the organ…is to be removed from its present location under the gallery to the former organ loft. It is too cramped now to be heard well or to advantage, besides we believe that the tone of the instrument is being impaired. The choir will also have a better chance of rendering the fine music for which this church is celebrated.” In November, 1862, the Courant noted that “a very handsome black walnut case, in the Gothic style, has been erected” for the new instrument which was first used for Christmas Eve services. Although the Hartford St. John’s was a large building with over 800 seats, a third organ move, in 1890, was necessitated by space issues resulting from the activist congregation’s many programs. The following year, the Courant stated that the instrument had been “removed to the body of the church” and “the old tower room and the organ loft choir alley…have been converted into a parish room…[while] the south staircase to the old organ gallery has been closed and a comfortable pastor’s study gained.” A final “adjustment” occurred near the end of the nineteenth century when the organ was brought from one side of the church to the other to make space for a vestry room. The main floor placement is shown in the photograph above, where the organ case can be seen at the right (south) side of the sanctuary. When J. Pierpont Morgan and the trustees of the Wadsworth Atheneum offered to buy the old, deteriorating church in order to use the land for a splendid new art museum extension, parishioners decided that the time had come for St. John’s to relocate to West Hartford. A magnificent new building, designed by Bertram Goodhue, of the renowned firm of Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, was completed in 1909. The Austin Organ Company of Hartford was chosen to build a two manual tubular pneumatic instrument of fourteen ranks, eight of which were retained from the 1861 Hook organ in the original edifice. Both Hook instruments in the Hartford church had been financed by subscription. -Scott Lamlein
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