The Republican-Courier
Wednesday Morning
November 24, 1937

DEATH STILLS PEN OF 'MILL STREAM' AUTHOR

Picturesque Blanchard Formed Setting for Tell Taylor's 'Mill Stream"

It was on the banks of the Blanchard river just east of Findlay that Tell Taylor wrote the words and melody of "Down By the Old Mill Stream," the song which has since become world-famous, winning fame for its author, who yesterday passed away in Chicago.

The stream and the old Misamore mill seven miles up the river inspired the song, which has since gone into millions of copies and the tune and words of which are known to almost everyone, the world over.

Death came to Mr. Taylor, just as he was about to depart from Chicago to participate in the making of a feature film, revolving about the old mill stream theme. He was to have a part in the cast of production as well.

The song was written by Mr. Taylor while he was fishing in the Blanchard, near the golf green located along the road as one enters the Country club ground from the west. He often recalled the scene in conversation with his many friends. As he angled for fish, his thoughts on that day some thirty years ago turned back to the old mill upstream which had always remained in his mind a cherished scene of his early boyhood.

Mr. Taylor, a little weary of life behind the footlights, had returned to the scenes of his childhood for rest and relaxation. It was while thus engaged that the words and melody were penned and the world a little later on was thus given one of its popular musical gems.

"Down By the Old Mill Stream" was followed by many more songs. Nearly 100 of which have been big sellers, such as: "Some Day," "If Dreams Come True," "When the Maple Leaves Were Falling," " He Sleeps Beneath the Soil of France," " I Love You Best of All," " Little Old Home in the Valley," " Rock Me to Sleep in the Old Rocking Chair," and a number of others.

Last spring, Mr. Taylor wrote a song dedicated to Findlay's Golden Celebration of Oil and Gas. The Oesterien gas well, which ushered in the great gas boom here in the eighties and which was marked by the June celebration, was on what is known as the Tell Taylor farm, just east of the city.

In addition to his success as a song writer, Mr. Taylor was an actor as well. He played in casts with such stars as Sophie Tucker Weber and Fields and others. He and Al Jolson played the leading roles in a musical comedy and later teamed together for a successful season on the vaudeville stage.

It was the Pan-American exposition in Buffalo in 1901 that started Mr. Taylor on his dramatic career. He had been singing in the Presbyterian Church choir and working as deputy county clerk and the courthouse until he went to Buffalo. His friends had been predicting a future for him in the musical world some day.

And "some day" was not very far distant, for not long after that in a restaurant in Buffalo, Tell Taylor singing a few bars from a current song hit for Joe Howard as he sat at his table with him, was given a role in his company. It did not take Tell Taylor long to reach the top in musical comedy, and for the next several seasons he played the leading roles in New York musical hits, such as: "In Panama" and "In New York Town" which ran two seasons at the Broadway theater.

Mr. Taylor wrote his first song on a train between Albany and New York, and he called it "Remember." At the time he was a touring the New England states with "Quincy Adams Sawyer." Back in New York again, he wrote "Tommy," a hit which made him famous as a song writer around New York. Later he wrote the music for his first musical comedy "Tiger Lillee,"and the following year the music for "In New York Town" all of which carried his name forever on the roll of composers in Tin Pan Alley.

Backed by T. B. Harms, Mr. Taylor, with the late Ernest R. Ball and former Mayor James Walker opened a musical publishing house on 28th street, New York, which was known the world over as the original "Tin Pan Alley." At the time Ball was writing "Love Me and the World is Mine," which later became a popular song, and "Will You Love Me In December As You Do In May," "Summertime for Mine," and "Bonnie Rose." Mr. Marms, their backer died before long, and the office was abandoned.

But this failing venture did not discourage Mr. Taylor. He went from there to Chicago where he played two seasons at the LaSalle theater in "The Girl Question," and "The Girl At the Gate," and the Sort Theater in "The Kissing Girl." While there he established the Tell Taylor Music Publishing House which is still in existence now under the name of the Forster Music Publishing Company.

It was to this publishing house in 1908 that he returned with "The Old Mill Stream," which remained in his desk two years, "unheralded and unsung." In 1910, the "Orpheus Comedy Four," a vaudeville quartet came to his office inquiring for something new and different for their repertoire. Charles Miller, who is now arranger with Schubert Brothers, was Mr. Taylor's arranger at the time, and suggested to him that he blow the dust from the wheel of "The Old Mill" and let it make its debut.

Mr. Taylor did so, and two days later received a wire from the quartet in Michigan stating the song was making a great hit, and another verse was wanted. Mr. Taylor wired them another verse, to which they responded by telegraph, "Rotten." This other verse nevertheless remained the second verse of the song, and has been thought by many to be one of the loveliest expressions of sentiment in the popular love song.

Music publishers are still gasping at the phenomenal sale of "Down By the Old Mill Stream." Published when "Alexander's Rag Time Band" was at the height of its popularity, Mr. Taylor was discouraged by his friends. "You'll never sell a copy," they declared, "what the public wants is pep and ragtime tunes." But more than 4,000,000 copies have been sold of "Down By the Old Mill Stream" and Mr. Taylor was still receiving royalties from it when he died.

The song was first sold in Saginaw, Michigan, after it had been introduced by the Orpheus Comedy Four. Mr. Taylor decided to try his hand at the selling game, and went to Kansas City where he obtained permission from a manager of a Woolworth store to sing his song. At that time song hits were being played and sung in the five and ten cent stores. In two days he had sold 1,000 copies he had brought with him and had wired for more. A store in Chicago sold 25,000 copies in a brief time, and in St. Louis 200,000 copies were sold shortly after it had been introduced.

"Alexander's Ragtime Band" offered no competition, being an entirely different type of song. "Down By the Old Mill Stream" is a whistling tune, a singable tune, and one easily played. Perhaps no song has been more adaptable to quartets, and more easily harmonized than Tell Taylor's song hit.

With coming of the radio, Mr. Taylor's song hit received a new impetus and he himself sang frequently over the ether. He participated in one of the first radio entertainments in Chicago. He was visiting guest artist when station WSPD was opened in Toledo some years ago.

  Findlay-Hancock County Public Library