Summer 2019 - From the Vestry minutes of St Stephens (Photograph from an archival source: Suzanne Glover Lindsay, submitted by Jeff Fowler/Jeff Fowler)
Note: Not extant. Not playable. (in this location)
2022-01-05 - A year after the church was consecrated (1823), the vestry arranged for an “organ screen” to be constructed though it did not yet have an organ. By spring 1824 they may have acquired the rented pipe organ mentioned in later Vestry Minutes since they approved the Music Fund Society’s request to use the church for the performance of Haydn’s Oratorio of the Creation, which includes an organ. The contract with St. Stephen’s was for $2175 and was fully paid by March 1827, following an apparently “late opening” of the organ in July 1826. Unfortunately, we still know little about that opening and who played. I don’t see any reference to a salaried organist until March 1833, when Mr. “Darly” (W.H.W. Darley [1810-1872], organist-composer now known mainly for his choral work), requested a salary increase. The Hall & Erben’s voice filled St. Stephen’s until 1864, when it was transferred to the chapel of an ambitious new project for the church, the Burd Orphan Asylum just built in West Philadelphia. It is not clear what happened to this inaugural pipe organ when the institution moved to 4226 Baltimore Avenue in the 1920s and the original property sold (it is now defunct). The 1825 Hall & Erben was replaced in 1864 by a new pipe organ by W.B.D. Simmons of Boston, possibly with input from St. Stephen’s new, eminent organist, David D. Wood. -- from church history web site -Paul R. Marchesano
Transcribed from the image of the Vestry minutes of the period attached under "images" Source: Vestry Minutes 1825
Hall & Erben (1825) St. Stephen's Episcopal Church Philadelphia, PA Hall & Erben Organ GREAT ORGAN: 9 Stops Open Diapason 58 pipes Stopped Diapason 58 pipes Stopped Diapason 58 pipes Principal 58 pipes Twelfth 58 pipes Fifteenth 58 pipes Sesquialtera 3 ranks 84 pipes Cornet 4 ranks 120 pipes Trumpet 58 pipes 610 pipes CHOIR ORGAN: 5 stops Dulciana 58 pipes Stopped Diapason 58 pipes Night Horn 58 pipes Flute 58 pipes Principal 58 pipes 290 pipes SWELL: 7 stops Open Diapason 37 pipes Stopped Diapason 37 pipes Viola da Gamba 37 pipes Principal 37 pipes Fifteenth 37 pipes Hautboy 37 pipes Tremulant 222 pipes PEDAL: 2 stops (CC, 16 ft. to G, first line) Double Open Diapason 20 pipes Octave 20 pipes 40 pipes 1162 pipes Philadelphia 18 April 1825
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