Northfield School
Northfield, Massachusetts

Hook & Hastings - Opus 1785 (1898)
Andover Organ Company opus R267

Hook & Hastings, Opus 1752 was originally built for St. Patrick's Church, Baltimore. At some point in the 1930's or 40's, the organ was electrified and the original action and console removed. In 1983, the church had a fire which destroyed the roof and much of the front of the building, but did not burn the organ, although it suffered heavy water damage. The instrument was removed by Andover and stored in the shop until 1994 when the church decided that it could not afford to restore the organ and put it up for sale.

Alan Laufman of the Organ Clearing House and Don Olson suggested that the organ be installed in Sage Chapel of Northfield Mout Hermon School to replace their 1938 Estey organ which was rapidly becoming unplayable. Andover Organ Company began work on the organ in March of 1996 and installed it in January 1997. The original tracker key action was restored, a new attached console built with a coupling manual to replace the Swell to Great coupler and electric stop action and a solid state combination action by SSLL was installed.

Although the original voicing was retained, the Great Mixture was repitched and expanded, a III Cornet was put in place of the 8' Dulciana and in the Swell, an 8' Celeste, 4' Principal (in place of the Violina) and III Mixture (in place of the III Cornet)were added. The Pedal was expanded to include an 8' Flutebass, 4' Choralbass and 16' Trombone using pipes from the Estey organ.

The organ was dedicated in October 1997 in a recital played by former Northfield Mount Hermon organist Joseph Elliott, Jr. and current organist Karen A. Guthrie.