Note: Not extant. Not playable. (in this location)
2023-06-19 - The other instrument was installed in Filene Music Hall on the new uptown campus. A music building was given by Mrs . George E. Ladd, Jr., of Wayne, Maine, the former Miss Helen Filen e, a 1922 graduate of the institution and later a college trustee. The 1967 organ was described as "given in honor of Mrs. Ladd [and] is being constructed by Professor Saxton of the Skidmore music faculty. Though incomplete, the console was in place for Saturday night's dedi cation ceremonies. The organ is a three-manual instrument with 23 ranks of pipes, combining Baroque and Romantic styles. Professor Saxton estimated its replacement value at $40, 000. Dr. Palamountain [then President of Skidmore] announced the organ gift when he dedicated...Filene Music Building at a program in its lecture-recital hall." The Saxton organ remaine d twenty-four years until the summer of 1981. On April 28 of that year, Saxton wrote to Donald Richards (in the College's Planned Giving Office): As you know I built and in large part financed the pipe organ in...Filene Music Hall. After I left [i.e. retired] Mr. [Dr.] Van Wye refused to play it or let students practice on it, and a rumor circulated that it was unplayable. The result is that it has not been played for the last 12 years and at this point has sadly deteriorated through lack of use and failure to service it. In fact to put it back into playing order would involve considerable expense. There are components of this organ which could still be very useful to an organ builder or service man but their value is rapidly diminishing...I would like to remove the organ at my own expense and salvage what is still usable in it. This could be done in the summer when the building is not in intensive use. If the College would allow me to do this, I would arrange to make a financial gift to them which would surely, as things stand, be more useful than a neglected and deteriorating organ. After polling the faculty, Richards found no objection to removing the instrument. He noted the potential of Mr. Saxton's monetary gift, and the organ was presumably removed during the summer of 1981 . Currently, Skidmore has no pipe organ. -- *2006 OHS Organ Atlas* -Paul R. Marchesano
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