Niagara Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company

Niagara Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company

The former Niagara Musical Instrument Mfg. Co. on Thompson Street in North Tonawanda, as it may have appeared in 1930, thirteen years after closing. Artificial Intelligence rendering of a still frame from a video in the Hamp collection of the Historical Society of the Tonawandas. The conspicuous depression of Felton Field (a former quarry and later train yard) is in the foreground. (1905-1917) The carousels being made in North Tonawanda open another, related market: automatic musical instruments such as band organs to accompany the rides.

The Niagara Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company enters this business in early 1905. In early 1905, "articles of partnership" are submitted to the Niagara County Clerk:

TO MAKE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Articles of partnership of the Niagara Musical Instrument Manufacturing company were filed today with the county clerk. The object of the company is to manufacture barrel organs and other musical instruments, and $1,500 is to be used to carry on this business. The directors, who are all from North Tonawanda, are as follows: Frank Morganti, Louis Schultz, George Schultz, William Herschell and Duncan Sinclair.

Lockport Journal, February 17, 1905.

The company is incorporated on September 30, 1905, with $25,000 capital. Its president, Frank Morganti, is a longtime former employee of Eugene de Kleist's North Tonawanda Barrel Organ Factory. Signatures on the company's 1905 incorporation papers include those of William Herschell, the man who arranged for de Kleist’s coming to America to make organs, as well as machinist William Strassburg. Also:

• Duncan Sinclair
• Frederick Schultz
• William H. Griffin
• Louis Schultz
• William D. Trimble

Niagara produces Niagara Military Band Organs ("The Organ That Is Different," one ad insists) for carousels, dance halls, roller rinks and sideshows. In 1906 Niagara loses some if its leadership, including president Frank Morganti, to the larger and better funded North Tonawanda Musical Instrument Works.

Niagara continues on, and completes a second small expansion of it modest plant in August 1910. They target the silent film theatre market that year with their "En-Symphonie" orchestrion. The "Midget Orchestra" and similar instruments follow.

Business appears to be booming in 1914, as the company pays out a dividend of 10% to its stockholders that January.

However, in October 1917, the Foster Specialty Company of Buffalo purchases the "patents, goodwill, stock in trade, and equipment" of Niagara. In spite of reports that Foster intends to "immediately develop the business...on a large scale," the enterprise is never heard from again.

Reader Andrew Barrett contributes the names C. E. Phillips and J. F. Preston as probable Niagara sales people in 1909 and probably thru 1910.

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