The Marr & Colton Company was a producer of
theater pipe organs, located in
Warsaw, New York
Warsaw is a town in Wyoming County, in the U.S. state of New York. The population was 5,064 at the 2010 census. It is located approximately 37 miles east southeast of Buffalo and approximately 37 miles southwest of Rochester. The town may ...
.
The firm was founded by David Jackson Marr and John J. Colton. The company built between 500 and 600 organs for theatres, churches, auditoriums, radio stations, and homes.
History
David Marr was born in
London in 1882. He served seven years as an apprentice in an organ building firm in
Edinburgh, where he learned every phase of
pipe organ construction. In 1904, he moved to the
United States where he acquired employment with the
Skinner Organ Company in
Boston. He later worked for the ''Hope-Jones Electric Organ Company'', owned by
Robert Hope-Jones, who made many initial innovations in the development of the ''Unit Orchestra'', later to become known as the ''Theatre Organ''. While working for Hope-Jones, Marr met John Colton.
The Hope-Jones firm was eventually sold to the
Wurlitzer Company in
North Tonawanda, New York, and David Marr and John Colton joined the Wurlitzer team. For two-and-one-half years, David Marr worked for Wurlitzer, ultimately becoming factory superintendent.
Tempted by the prospect of operating his own company, Marr opened the ''Marr and Colton Organ Company'' in Warsaw, New York, in 1915. John Colton was with the new company from the beginning, but contrary to popular notion, did not invest any money in the new organization.
The first theatre organ produced by the company was for the Oatka Theatre in Warsaw. At the height of its operation in the 1920s, the company had branch offices in New York City, Detroit, and Hollywood, and some 375 people were employed by the firm. David Marr would often attend the opening of a new theatre in which one of his instruments was installed. Occasionally, he would do the final tuning in the theatre before the grand opening.
The company's largest organ was a 5-manual, 24-rank, which was installed in the Rochester Theatre, in
Rochester, New York in 1927. The theatre was demolished in 1964, and the organ sold.
At the start of the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
of the early 1930s, sales for the
Marr & Colton Company began to decline rapidly.
In 1932, John Colton left the firm to join the
Kilgen Organ Company in
St. Louis as a salesman, and died shortly after. Operations ceased at the Warsaw plant in the fall of 1932. David Marr set up a shop in his home cellar and garage, performing organ repair work. He serviced organs in churches and homes until he died on December 20, 1951.
Current organ installations
''This list is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.''
*
Ohio Theatre
Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
,
Toledo, Ohio
*
Clemens Center
The Clemens Center is a concert and theater center in Elmira, New York. It is named after Samuel Clemens, whose pen name was Mark Twain and was often resident in Elmira when writing his books. The Clemens Center partners with local educators throu ...
,
Elmira, New York
Elmira () is a city and the county seat of Chemung County, New York, United States. It is the principal city of the Elmira, New York, metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses Chemung County. The population was 26,523 at the 2020 cens ...
*
Arcada Theater Building,
St. Charles, Illinois
St. Charles is a city in DuPage and Kane counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. It lies roughly west of Chicago on Illinois Route 64. Per the 2020 census, the population was 33,081. The official city slogan is "Pride of the Fox", after the F ...
* The Chevalier Theatre,
Medford, Massachusetts
Medford is a city northwest of downtown Boston on the Mystic River in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the time of the 2020 U.S. Census, Medford's population was 59,659. It is home to Tufts University, which has its campus alo ...
* The Jane Pickens Theater & Event Center, Newport, Rhode Island www.janepickens.com
* The Grand Theater, East Greenville, PA www.thegrandtheater.org/history
* Thomaston Opera House, Thomaston, CT
* Methodist Church, Bolivar, NY
Former organ locations
* Leow's Rochester Theatre,
Rochester, New York
* Capitol Theater,
Wheeling, West Virginia
* Roosevelt Theater 887 Broadway (4/18),
Buffalo, New York
* Saint Patrick Catholic Church, 721 Main St,
Watsonville, California, 95076 (2 manuals; replaced in 1974 with a new 2-manual instrument by the Wicks Organ Company; some, but not a lot, of the original pipes were incorporated into the Wicks Organ.)
* Palace Theatre, Danbury, CT
* Immanuel Lutheran Church,
Bristol, Connecticut, (installed 1930, replaced in 1974-75 by a new three manual instrument from
Austin Organs
Austin Organs, Inc., is a manufacturer of pipe organs based in Hartford, Connecticut. The company is one of the oldest continuously-operating organ manufacturers in the United States. The first instruments were built in 1893 with the Austin Patent ...
.) Some ranks from the church's Marr and Colton organ survived removal and are currently installed in the organ at the
Thomaston Opera House,
Thomaston, Connecticut.
References
{{reflist
External links
American Theatre Organ Society
Companies based in New York (state)
Musical instrument manufacturing companies of the United States