Hilbus Pipe Organ
date: label: date made
content: 1811 - 1813
name: label: user
content: Vestry of St. Thomas Church
notes: label: Description
content: <p>This pipe organ was made by Jacob Hilbus in Washington, District of Columbia, around 1811-1813. It has a single keyboard, with a compass of FF – f3. The organ’s disposition is as follows:</p>
label: Description
content: <p>Single keyboard, FF - f3<br>8' Open Diapason<br>8' Dulciana (c1 – f3)<br>8' Stopped Diapason (Treble and Bass)<br>4” Flute<br>4' Principal (Treble and Bass)<br>2 2/3' Twelfth<br>2' Fifteenth<br>8' Open Diapason (in guillotine Swell, c1 – f3)<br>4' Principal (in guillotine Swell, c1 – f3)<br>Machine stop</p>
label: Description
content: <p>Jacob Hilbus was a musical jack-of-all-trades, a Washingtonian who built several organs. This instrument came to the museum in 1907 as a gift from the Vestry of St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church in Hancock, Maryland.</p>
label: Description
content: <p>Much misinformation exists about the organ, notably that it was an English early eighteenth-century instrument originally in St. Peter’s Church, Port Royal, Virginia. There is no evidence for this. It is almost certain (but not easily documented) that it was made for Christ Church, Alexandria, Virginia. At least, there is an entry in the Vestry minutes for January 15, 1815, noting that Hilbus needed more money from the church. The instrument bears many hallmarks of somewhat primitive early nineteenth-century American work. Its wooden parts, for instance, are made of American poplar and eastern pine.</p>
label: Description
content: <p>It is probable that the organ was also in St. Johmn’s Church, Shepherdstown, West Virginia, before going to St. Thomas’ in Hancock. Reasons for attributing the organ to Hilbus include similarities to a Hilbus instrument in St. John’s Church, Broad Creek, Maryland, and the existence of a bill from Hilbus for tuning “a piano forty” that was used to glue up a joint within the organ.</p>
label: Description
content: <p>The Fisk restoration report of 1967 states, “Recent research by various people at C. B. Fisk, Inc., and elsewhere, has proved beyond question that the organ belonging to the Smithsonian and long thought to have been an early 18th-century English organ which had once belonged to a church in Port Royal, was in fact built entirely new by Jacob Hilbus and Henry Howison of Washington, D.C. for Christ Church in Alexandria.</p>
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
label: Location
content: Currently not on view (pipes)
label: Location
content: Currently not on view (organ parts)
label: Location
content: Currently not on view (case parts, impost molding)
label: Location
content: Currently not on view (organ structure core, bellows, keyboard)
label: Location
content: Currently not on view (pipes, organ parts, blueboard boxes of parts)
place: label: place made
content: United States: District of Columbia, Washington
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Musical Instruments
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content: Music & Musical Instruments
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content: Organs
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of The Vestry of St. Thomas Church
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MI.244851
label: accession number
content: 46831
label: catalog number
content: 244851
objectType: label: Object Name
content: organ
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood, walnut (casework material)
label: Physical Description
content: gilded (pipes material)
label: Physical Description
content: plaster, gilded (garlands material)
label: Physical Description
content: ivory (keys material)
label: Physical Description
content: ebony (keys material)
label: Physical Description
content: iron (pedals material)
label: Physical Description
content: silver (plates on knobs material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 147 in x 90 in x 46 in; 373.38 cm x 228.6 cm x 116.84 cm