Our Organ

The pipe organ currently at St. Peter’s was built by the Schlicker Organ Company of Buffalo, NY. The instrument currently has 91 ranks of pipes, amounting to approximately 5191 individual pipes.

In 1975, the Schlicker Organ Company completed the eleven rank antiphonal organ located in the west gallery. This instrument still has its original two manual console. From 1976-77 Schlicker installed an instrument of 62 ranks in the chancel. A three manual console plays both the chancel and antiphonal organs. Eighteen additional ranks of pipes were added over a span of years, initially by Gregor Hand and Ralphe Blakely in 1987, and in 1992 by the Cary Organ Company. A solid state combination action was added at this time.

Timeline of the Pipe Organs of St. Peter's Church

1812 The first organ installed in St. Peter's was built by the New York builder William Redstone for the sum of $1800. An organist was hired, and to the sexton's duties was added "blowing the organ bellows," for which he was paid $25 a year. In the same year Mr. Redstone built an organ for St. George's Church, Schenectady.

1835 Messrs. E. and G. G. Hook of Boston built a new organ, Op. 20, of two manuals and twenty-four stops for St. Peter's. A report in the Albany Evening Journal describes this organ in glowing terms, and says, "The cost, we understand, was three thousand dollars." St. George's Church, Schenectady, purchased Hook's Op. 38 instrument a few years later.

1860 In this, the year following the construction of the current church building, Johnson and Son, organbuilders of Westfield, Massachusetts, built "an organ both sweet and powerful, which was capable of enlargement and enrichment whenever desired." The organ was in the rear balcony of the church.

1880 The organ, now in "maimed and shattered condition," was rebuilt by the Hook and Hastings company.

1886 Hilborne Rossevelt, organbuilder, supplied an organ of three manuals and twenty-seven stops for the newly prepared organ chamber at the front of the church. A plaque commemorating this instrument is on the wall next to the pulpit. At this time a vested choir of men and boys, which would sing from the front of the church, was instituted.

1895 Six new stops were added.

1921 E. M. Skinner Organ Co. built the Battershall Memorial Organ, a sister instrument to the one recently reinstalled in Westminster Presbyterian Church, Albany. This organ included an Echo Division, which spoke into the church from the clerestory window in the tower.

1957 The organ was redesigned and rebuilt by the M. P. Moller Co., Hagerstown, Maryland.

1976 A new organ was built by the Schlicker Organ Co., Buffalo, New York.