The first photo comes from the 1894 book Picturesque Brattleboro, which declared that “The Company makes nothing but absolutely high grade goods, and its reputation is such the world over. This six-story building had once been home to Brattleboro Melodeon Company, which had been established in 1867, and the building was likely constructed around the same time. The first photo, taken about a decade later, shows the company’s factory on Flat Street. The elder Carpenter later relocated to Illinois, but his son subsequently returned to New England, producing organs in Worcester until 1884, when he moved the company to Brattleboro. Carpenter, had been one of the early partners in the Estey company. Carpenter, a second-generation organ maker whose father, Edwin B. The Carpenter Organ Company had originally been established in Worcester, Massachusetts by Edwin P.
![estey organ company brattleboro vt estey organ company brattleboro vt](https://www.esteyorganmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/5-Flattop-Cottage-Organ.jpg)
The largest of these was Estey Organ, which was once the largest organ manufacturer in the country, but Estey also had several competitors, including the Carpenter Organ Company, which was located here in this factory on Flat Street. Also known as pump organs, reed organs, or melodeons, these instruments enjoyed widespread popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and Brattleboro had several companies that produced them. Image from Picturesque Brattleboro (1894).ĭuring the second half of the 19th century, Brattleboro became a prosperous mill town, and one of its leading industries was the manufacturing of organs. The Carpenter Organ Company on Flat Street in Brattleboro, around 1894.