Person Record

Metadata

Name

Barton, Daniel Wiley

Notes

Daniel Wiley Barton was born in Amherst, Portage County, Wisconsin on May 30, 1884 the son of Daniel A. and Wilhelmina Fleming Barton. He was the twin brother of George Fleming Barton. His father served in the 21st Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War and was disabled due to wounds received in battle. The family moved to Oshkosh, Wisconsin prior to 1891.

Dan played drums in local bands and left high school during his second year. He then joined the band of Ringling Brothers Circus and traveled with them for ten years. During his travels he met and married Annabelle, his first wife. They had two children together, Dorthy A. Barton, born September 1909 in Canada, and George William Barton, born February 24, 1915 in Oshkosh. He returned to Oshkosh to help care for his invalid father when his mother died on November 4, 1909.

Dan then began drumming in the orchestra at the Bijou Theater in Oshkosh. It was here that he began experimenting with attaching electric bells to a keyboard. He soon had them attached to a piano and he was able to make and sell sixteen of these sets. He soon approached the Wangerin Organ Company in Milwaukee with his invention. They began making organs for theaters that would have the sounds of many orchestral instruments and the Bartola Organ was the result. The first Bartols was made and installed in the Rex Theater in Oshkosh in 1911. Dan went into partnership with Warren G. Maxcy, the manager of the Grand Opera House, and began manufacturing Bartolas in a rented machine shop on State Street in 1912. He called his business the Barton Musical Specialties. The company was successful and soon opened an office in Chicago, Illinois and also started a school for Bartola players. He later began building loft organs for theaters and churches across the country. By 1916 they were called the Bartola Musical Instrument Company, and were located in a larger factory at 20 Algoma Boulevard.

Annabelle Barton died at the age of twenty-nine on June 15, 1917, leaving Dan a widower with two children. His son George soon moved in with his sister Nellie Barton Strodoff. His second wife was Margaret Barton and they were married prior to 1920. They had two children together, Richard F., born about 1925 and David Barton about 1931. The couple divorced in Oshkosh on August 29, 1933. Dan then married Helen M. Malacki in Chicago about 1935.

In 1929 the theater organ business went into decline with the advent of talking pictures. The company then began to expand and manufacture church organs. They were unable to compete in a depression era economy and the company closed in 1932. Dan moved to Chicago and began working as a salesman for Wurlitzer Organ Company in their refrigerator department. This branch of the business was closed and Dan briefly worked in advertising. It was about this time that he divorced his wife Margaret and married his office secretary. The couple lived in Oshkosh in 1936 with his children from his previous marriages. Dan invested in real estate and converted houses into apartments for rental. He died in Oshkosh on April 26, 1974.