William H. Barlow & Son
1963ca.

This entry describes the final intervention while in Sidney, in the biography of the Beman mechanical-action organ originally built for this congregation at an unknown date in the final quarter of the 19th-century and placed in their 1871 building. It was moved by the Buhl Organ Co. of Utica to the church's new building in 1934, completely rebuilt on electro-pneumatic unit chests and placed in chancel chambers, preserving only the pipework. The organ was worked over again by one of Buhl's successors, likely by Barlow, (or possibly by Cortese), ca. 1963 when the church complex was expanded and remodeled. Placed in deep chambers with inadequate tonal egress and speaking into a dead room, the organ was not a success and was supplanted by a Conn electronic with the patented and infamous "Conn Pipe" speakers, probably late 1960s. When the Conn failed, it was replaced with another imitation organ but the fake golden cylinder "pipes" remain as chancel decorations. The organ was ultimately sold in 1983 to the United Methodist Church in nearby Oneonta, where it was rebuilt again and respecified on new DE unit chests by the Chase Organ Company of Worcester, New York.