When St. Anne’s Church was built in 1825, it initially had no organ, but in 1828 a two-manual organ was purchased from William M. Goodrich, the leading organ builder in Boston, for $1,360.00, of which $1,000.00 was donated by the Merrimack Corporation. In 1853 this organ was sold to a church in Hudson and replaced by an organ of two manuals and 17 stops built by William Stevens of Cambridge. Both of these organs, along with the choir, occupied the rear gallery of the church, which was originally much larger than it is at present. The Stevens organ was subsequently moved to the residence of George Metcalf, and later rebuilt and enlarged for the Centralville Methodist Church.
In 1884 the 1825 building was enlarged by the addition of the present chancel. The choir, by then consisting of men and boys, was moved to two sets of facing choir stalls in the new chancel, and an organ of three manuals and thirty stops, built by the Hook & Hastings company of Boston, was installed on the left-hand side of the chancel. Like its two predecessors, it originally had mechanical (“tracker”) key and stop action, and a console attached to the side facing the choir. It was dedicated on November 20, 1884, in an organ recital by Samuel Brenton Whitney, organist of the Church of the Advent in Boston, which included two sacred solos by Master George E. Warring, boy soprano. In the dedication program, the builders made the following statement:
It has been the aim of the builders, in the creation of this instrument, to have as a result a distinctively characteristic Church Organ; and its predominating feature is the full, solid, sympathetic quality of tone which sustains, while it blends with, the voices, and makes a thoroughly harmonious ensemble of choir and organ possible. This too is accomplished without a sacrifice of the characteristic quality of tone in individual registers, for in each there is a full development of their separate characters, in a thoroughly artistic manner, and in the balancing and blending together the perfection of tone color is reached. The power is ample, and in the large variety the Organ possesses, every demand of church service may be fully met.
In 1929 the Hook & Hastings organ was rebuilt by William W. Laws of Beverly, Mass., who electrified the action, installed a new Austin console at the opposite side of the chancel, and added a fourth manual division in the form of a ten-stop Echo Organ located above the entrance at the opposite end of the room. In 1972 a few tonal alterations were made to Great and Swell divisions by Wilson Barry of Andover, Mass., who also made some mechanical repairs, and the organ was rededicated on April 23. In 2002 the Echo Organ was rebuilt by Scot Huntington of Stonington, Conn., who converted it tonally into a more assertive Processional Organ.
The Chapel to the right of the main church building was built in 1863, but did not originally have a pipe organ, although it probably had contained a reed organ at some time. In 1979 John Ogasapian, who was then the organist, helped the church to acquire a small one-manual organ of three stops for the Chapel. Built in 1881 by Hilborne L. Roosevelt of New York, it was purchased from the First Presbyterian Church of Evans Mills, N.Y., and has proven a useful addition to the Chapel.
(Many thanks to Barbara Owen for this history of the organ)
