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DECEMBER 4, 1920
THE MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
WILLIAM DALLIBA DUTTON DIES AFTER LONG ILLNESS
Treasurer of Hardman, Peck & Co. Dedicated a Lifetime of Usefulness to the Piano Industry-
Member of One of the Oldest Families of Piano Merchants in the United States
William Dalliba Dutton, one of the prom-
inent figures in the piano industry of New York
and treasurer of Hardman, Peck & Co., 433 Fifth
avenue, died at St. Luke's Hospital on Friday,
November 26, after an illness lasting several
months. He was seventy-two years of age. The
funeral was held at St. James Church, Madison
avenue and Seventy-first street, on Monday
morning at 10 o'clock.
With the passing of William Dalliba Dutton,
the trade has lost one of its strongest and most
elevate the trade. His good work was so ap-
preciated by the trade in general that in 1902-3
he was elected president of the National Pi3no
Manufacturers' Association. The many floral
tributes and the great number of letters of con-
dolence which have been sent to Louis Gordon
Dutton, son and only surviving member of the
family, are even stronger proof of the vast num-
ber of friends Mr. Dutton had among the mem-
bers of the trade.
His life was not hemmed in by the business
world and he spent much of his time promoting
the appreciation of higher arts and helping to
make this world better for his fellow men. He
was one of the founders of the Art Club of
Philadelphia, a member of the Committee of
Fifty in Philadelphia, which cleaned up politics
in that city, and was always affiliated with
musical life in the Quaker City.
He was appointed a member of the Committee
9
of Three to the World's Columbian Exposition
to judge the art submitted by the Keystone
State. Mr. T)utton was a member of the Metro-
politan Club of New York, Sons of the American
Revolution, the Colonial War Society, the May-
flower Descendants and the Huguenot Society.
The number of personal friends and business
associates, including the factory employes, who
attended the Episcopal funeral services on
Monday was most impressive. The pallbear-
ers were: Carl E. Peck, president; Ashley B.
Cone, vice-president; Eugene A. Schmidt, man-
ager of the factory; and August Hagemeyer,
secretary, all of the firm of Hardman, Peck &
Co.; and Clarence S. Day, Henry S. Van Duzer,
T. J. Oakland Rhinelander, William Mitchell,
Frederick Swift and J. Arthur Bramwell, who
were personal friends of the deceased.
The body was taken to the vault in Wood-
lawn Cemetery, where the remains of Mrs.
William Dalliba Dutton, who died last February,
have been interred. With the coming of Spring,
the bodies of both Mr. and Mrs. Dutton will be
removed from Woodlawn to the family's burial
grounds, located in Utica, N. Y.
GOOD CHRISTMAS PROSPECTS IN PHILADELPHIA TRADE
Local Piano Dealers Are Feeling Optimistic Over the Coming Holiday Season—Manufacturers Will
Close a Very Satisfactory Year—Piano Row to Be Redecorated—Other News
William Dalliba Dutton
influential men. His absence is not only keenly
felt by his business associates, but by many
others not connected with the industry who are
mourning the loss of a sincere friend. Mr. Dut-
ton was connected with the piano industry
throughout his lifetime. He comes from one
of the oldest, if not the oldest, family of piano
merchants in America. George Dutton, grand-
father of the deceased, established a piano store
under his own name in Utica, N. Y., in 1821.
He was succeeded, in turn, by William H. Dut-
tcn, father of William Dalliba Dutton. In about
1863 Mr. Dutton's father sold his establishment
and moved to Philadelphia, opening another
store in his own name, and taking on the agency
of the Chickering piano. A few years later,
William Dalliba Dutton entered the firm and
the name was changed to William H. Dutton &
Son.
In 1880 the firm discontinued the Chickering
line and became agents for the Hardman piano.
Through the death of W. H. Dutton the firm's
name had, by this time, changed to William D.
Dutton & Co. In 1893 Mr. Dutton left Phila-
delphia and connected himself with the firm of
Hardman, Peck & Co. Serving in various
capacities for several years, he became so valu-
able to the company that at the time of its in-
corporation, in -1904, he became treasurer and
served in this capacity until his death.
Throughout his lifetime in the piano industry,
he unceasingly bent his efforts in an endeavor to
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PHILADELPHIA, PA., November 30.—The Christ-
mas spirit is abroad. Among all the dealers this
week I found a much more cheerful note being
struck than was the rule during the month of
November, in fact all Fall. There was a gen-
eral feeling among the dealers that they had
been feeding up all Summer, that this Fall was
going to see a terrible slump in business. They
talked it and they acted it. They sat about with
a countenance as severe as Mrs. Jiggs, and in-
stead of "Bringing Up Business" they resigned
themselves to the inevitable. Only irecently
they have begun to advertise to any extent, and
the result is that there is a spirited movement
upward the past week of all lines of the music
business, and of a good, substantial character.
Unfortunately here and there is an evidence
of price slashing, and it is not of a very whole-
some character at that, but it is more generally
in the talking machine field. It is the general
impression that there is going to be a pretty
good clean-up bffore the first of the year ar-
rives and that many of the firms will have very
little stock left over, except where the dealers
or managers have overloaded themselves or al-
lowed themselves to be overloaded by the too
generous manufacturers.
The Philadelphia manufacturers are assured
of a very good year. More pianos have been
made this year in Philadelphia by at least 50 per
cent than any year in the past. The Philadelphia
manufacturers have been most fortunate in
having no labor troubles during the entire year
and through their foresight they had on hand
great quantities of supplies, so that they were
only slightly handicapped in the factories. The
Lester, the Schomacker and the Cunningham fac-
tories have begun to slow up a little, for they
want to finish up as much as possible the started
stock and will put their biggest effort during
December to the packing and the shipping of
pianos.
The piano men of Piano Row have had an-
other meeting this week and have finally come
to a decision to paint the entire Row in a uni-
form way and with a light cream color with a
sort of a pinkish tint. Some time ago, before
the question was agitated, the Cunningham Co.
had its entire building painted in this color.
It was due to this fact that the color to be
used was decided upon, and work has already
been begun on the front of the Ludwig Piano
Co. and the Widener Grafonola Shop. The en-
tire block will, no doubt, be finished before the
first of the year. It is going to make a great
improvement in the Row over the dullness of the
varied dark brown and grays that have been used
in the past. It now should be an incentive for
the firms to get together and devise some form
of uniformity in the way of front entrances,
awnings, etc., and either all of them build a
uniform metal awning to the curb or do away
with them entirely. This Row could be made
the most attractive in the city. The buildings
belong to the Girard Estate, which, it is under-
stood, has offered to contribute $2,500 toward the
painting of the buildings and the firms will
pay the rest.
Gimbel Bros, report that they have been hav-
ing a very good business the past week, selling
a great many of the bankrupt International
Piano Co.'s stock, and especially in the talk-
ing machine department, where they have been
having a big run. Among the visitors to the
office of Manager McCarthy the past week were:
Arthur Conroy, of the Connorized Music Co.,
and A. H. Kayton, formerly president of the
Milton Piano Co., but now retired from busi-
ness, although keeping still a vital interest in
a trade in which he was for so many years so
successfully associated. He has just returned
from traveling in Italy for his health.
Manager Butler, of the Strawbridge &
Clothier piano department, reports that his busi-
ness has not been as good in November as it
was in the November of last year, but it has
picked up slightly the last week. The firm have
been having a very good success with their
Hazelton Welte-Mignon reproducing pianos.
W. W. Crocker, the Southern and Western
salesman of the Lester, came in on Saturday
last from his last trip of the year, and he said
he found all his dealers well supplied and well
satisfied with the business they are doing.
Among the visitors to the Lester offices were W.
L. Moyer, vice-president of the A. B. Smith Co.,
of Akron, O., and L. A. Russell, an extensive
Lester dealer of Augu6ta, Ga.
The Heppes report that their Christmas Club
has been going very well and they expect to
completely sell out of pianos that they have de-
signed for this sale, or rather set apart for it,
for the sale includes all classes of instruments
they sell. They have been enjoying a very good
business lately on Duo-Art Webers, having sold
two of these fine instruments one day last week.
Charles Burke Miller, the manager of the piano
department of Snellcnburg's, reports that his de-
partment has shown considerably more activity
than formerly. They have been getting in a
number of the new style Marvin players and they
believe they are going to have an excellent busi-
ness on these instruments.
Consult the universal Want Directory of
The Review. In it advertisements are inserted
free of charge for men who desire positions
of any kind.