M.P. Moller and the Urban Fabric of Hagerstown;
How the Organ Business Changed the City
Rebeccah Ballo
University of Virginia
Boomtown
ARH 592-Prof. Daniel Bluestone/
LAR 526- Prof. Julie Bargman
December 15, 2002
1
Introduction
The life of Mathias Peter Moller, the founder of the largest pipe organ company in
the world, has been described as a Horatio Alger story, or as the ultimate fulfillment of
the American dream.1 Moller located his business in Hagerstown, Maryland in the late
19th century, and over the course of his lifetime he contributed significantly to the growth
and economic development of the city. The impact of Moller’s life and his organ business
affected many different parts of the urban fabric of Hagerstown; in addition to his two
factories, Moller constructed housing for himself and his workers, improved roads and
water lines in the northern parts of the city, invested heavily in the rehabilitation of his
local church, took control of a local automobile manufacturing company, and adaptively
reused one of his old factories as an upscale apartment complex. The leaders of
Hagerstown believed in his ability to build the city, and they offered him a number of
incentives to relocate his organ business and continue with all his entrepreneurial
activities in Hagerstown instead of Pennsylvania. Moller obliged, and his organ factory,
wealth, and family remained in Hagerstown for the duration of their lives. In the process,
Moller’s businesses and his commitment to the civic life of the city indelibly imprinted
the memory of his legacy on a number of different spaces in Hagerstown. This process of
building a business and building a life in one place has certain cumulative impacts and
shows how one man, through industrial means, had a lasting effect over time on the
commercial, residential, and civic fabric of the city of Hagerstown.
See Sarah M. Newton. “The Story of The M.P. Moller Organ Company.” (Master’s Thesis, Union
Theological Seminary, 1950)., and “Mathias Peter Moller.” New York: The Writer’s Press Association,
April 20, 1935. (Moller File. Western Maryland Reading Room. Washington County Public Library.)
1
2
Creating The Industrial Space: Moller’s Organ Factory
M.P. Moller’s organ building industry had an effect on both the cultural identity
and the urban fabric of Hagerstown. Interestingly, it was through the high style, religious
and cultural institution of the organ industry that Moller made significant impacts on the
commercial development patterns in the town. While cultural and economic interests
might seem to be in opposition to one another, the Moller Organ Company embodied
both and was able to have a positive impact on both realms in the city. So while the
Moller’s economic dynasty may now be gone, the cultural memory of his business and
civic endeavors still exist in the urban fabric of Hagerstown.
The remaining cultural memory of the different Moller industries can be
understood by examining the overlapping uses of space that occurred over time. Though
the spaces physically occupied by Moller interests were previously used for residences,
religious activities, and other industrial operations, it is the Moller imprint, the memory
of those particular associations and uses associated with his life, that have remained in
those spaces even though the Moller industries and family no longer physically use them
anymore.
The most obvious example of this can be seen in the Moller Organ factory on
North Prospect Street. The site was opened for operation in January 1896 and continued
to be used by the Moller Company until the business went bankrupt in the early 1990s.
The site of the present factory is located on Prospect Hill. The property was deeded to
Moller to convince him to stay in Hagerstown and not relocate after a devastating fire
consumed his original factory on Potomac Street. The men involved in this transaction,
Dr. Wareham and Mr. Long, who was an agent of the Cumberland Valley Railroad,
3
jointly owned this tract, and offered it to Moller in 1895 for his new factory. The only
caveat of the agreement held that Moller could have the land if he opened up avenues of
access to the site and built housing beside his plant.2 These buildings were later used to
house Moller employees. The Cumberland Valley Railroad also ran a spur to the factory
from the western side of the hill; this rail line would greatly improve Moller’s ability to
import the raw materials needed to build his organs, and in the days before trucking, it
helped him ship organs around the country more efficiently than before.
Figure 1: 1981 Aerial of Prospect Hill Factory. From 1981 Moller Promotional Brochure.
Moller’s factory on Prospect Hill promoted the economic and demographic growth of
Hagerstown. Before Moller built his new factory, the hill was on the western outskirts of
the town. There were few houses nearby, and the nearby streets were still ungraded and
rarely used. While an old Roman Catholic cemetery was located on the southern portion
of the hill, the rest of the property was essentially vacant. At that time, the factory was
outside of the city boundaries, and so there was no running water, no sewer lines, and no
good access by roads. North Avenue came to a dead end at the factory doors on Prospect
Hill, a situation which Moller used to his advantage in 1925 with the completion of his
new erecting room over the Avenue’s former right-of-way. Without city water, Moller
2
Sarah Newton, 15.
4
used two large water cisterns on the property. Eventually, in order to get water to the
factory, Moller had the water main run up Jonathan Street to the east of the factory, and
then around Prospect Street to the North. The factory was then connected to the town’s
infrastructure through the new water main, the new houses on Prospect Street, and from
the improvements on North Avenue between Moller’s Potomac Avenue house and the
factory.
This factory represented the epicenter of Moller’s world; he worked in the
factory, lived near it, saw generations of his family work there, and used it to establish
the base for his wealth and civic prominence in Hagerstown.
The Civic Face and the Industrial Face of the Factory
The Prospect Street factory projected both images of M.P. Moller the Industrialist,
and M.P. Moller the Civic City Builder to the city of Hagerstown. These two different
aspects of Moller’s life can be read plainly in the two facades of his second factory. The
east façade, the one that faced onto North Avenue and the city projects an image of civic
engagement mixed with ecclesiastical reserve, while the west façade, the one that faced
the railroad tracks, is the working side of the building. While both facades were part of
the same building complex, each one was used in very different ways though they both
worked together to present the completed image of M.P. Moller and his organ company.
5
The Western Façade: The Working Moller
The western side of the factory complex was where the work took place. Raw
materials arrived here by rail beginning in the 1890s, and the rail lines continued to be
used until the factory closed in the 1980s. While the western and eastern sides of the
building have the same utilitarian brickwork, the western façade proudly displays the
Moller name in paint from the top floor of the factory. This side of the building dealt with
work, labor, and production; it was not often seen by the townspeople, but was used by
Moller employees and seen by railroad workers from the nearby tracks.
Figure 2: Western Facade of the Moller Factory. From the papers of Peter Moller Daniels.
At its peak, the organ factory imported an astounding variety of materials from
around the globe. They can be broadly categorized as wood materials, metals, and to a
small extent, animal products. The vast majority of the materials that were assembled in
the organ factory were imported from the beginning of the company from elsewhere.
The lumber is the most important raw material for making an organ. As Peter
Daniels commented, “organ building is glorified cabinet making”, and as such, Moller
imported an incredibly wide variety and volume of wood materials for their musical
6
‘cabinets’.3 The capacity of the factory site was enormous; at its peak of production in
the 1930s and continuing through the 1980s, two million board feet of lumber were
always located on site, to guard against supply flow problems. Most of this wood was
imported along the Cumberland Valley Railroad line (later the Pennsylvania Railroad)
that ran a spur from the tracks west of the factory right into the lumberyards on the south
side of the plant.
The main structural support for the organ was provided by pine, fir, or poplar.
West coast sugar pines, ponderosa, gum and spruce pine were imported from the western
United States, although at first the companies used local pine varieties from a Moller
lumber mill in West Virginia. Hardwoods such as
poplar, maple, cherry, black walnut, birch, and
quartered oak came from the Mid-Atlantic and
northeast. There woods were used for the
decorative organ casings and for other decorative
Figure 3: Moller lumberyards. From
1981 Moller Promotional Brochure.
elements. More exotic woods like Honduran
Mahogany and Teak were imported from South
America; these were also used for exterior decorative purposes. The pedals keys were
made of white maple and ebony. Most of these woods were imported through various
distributors. The Mollers used a distributor who worked out of Baltimore and imported
raw wood and wood products from all over the globe. Today, the Eastern Pipe Organ
Company uses J. Bruce Barnes from Crozet, Virginia as the main hardwood supplier for
their company.4
3
4
Peter Moller Daniels. Interview by Rebeccah Ballo and Gabrielle Harlan. November 2002.
Brendan Fitzsimmons. Interview by Rebeccah Ballo and Gabrielle Harlan. October 2002.
7
Metals are the second major components for
pipe organs. A variety of different metals are used to
make different types of pipes and for the internal
wiring. There are essentially two different types of
metal pipes; one type uses pure tin, or a tin and lead
Figure 4: Unrolling the sheet metal.
From 1981 Moller Promotional
Brochure.
alloy, to produce a high-pitched reed sound; the
pipes are made of different metal alloys that can be
manipulated to produce different sizes of pipes with a wide array of sounding
capabilities. The metals for the tin pipes are currently being imported from Malaysia,
Bolivia, China, and Peru. Alloys using zinc are generally used for the larger pipes; the
zinc has always come in pre-rolled sheets, whereas Moller used to do some of the rolling
of the tin sheets on site at the factory.5 The mechanical parts are all made from imported
brass, aluminum, and bronze. Most of the raw materials came to the factory through
suppliers in Baltimore and the Midwest (St. Joseph’s Lead Co.)
The third category of components for the pipe organs came from animal
materials. The leather used in the valves came from Scotch or New Zealand lambskins,
and the keys were made from imported African ivory.
So while the raw materials around Hagerstown, at least the woods,
were important in the early years of the company, it was really the
extensive transportation routes that allowed Moller to obtain his raw
materials and flourish in the organ trade.
Figure 5:Ivory keys. Personal photograph.
5
Fitzsimmons Interview.
8
The Eastern Façade: The Civic-Minded Moller
On December 8th, 1925, Moller celebrated 50
years in the organ making business with a Golden
Anniversary celebration and dinner at his factory. The
highlight of the evening was the gala opening of the
factory’s new erecting room. This new space spanned the
area over the North Avenue right-of-way that crossed
Prospect Hill. North Avenue ended at Prospect Street, but
the right-of-way had been extended over Prospect Hill
and to the west in case any more road building would
occur. When Moller received the deed to Prospect Hill
Figure 6: Invitation to 1925 Golden
Anniversary Gala. From papers of Peter
Moller Daniels.
and built his factory, any plans to extend the road were abandoned. The new erecting
room essentially filled in space between two pre-existing walls and projected a new
façade along the now completed eastern wall of the factory. While the earlier factory
walls that faced east were clad in simple, utilitarian brickwork, the wall of the new
erecting room took a new aesthetic approach. This carefully composed façade shows how
Moller wanted to project a certain image of his company to the people of Hagerstown and
how he used the architecture of his factory to accomplish this.
With the completion of the new erecting room in 1925, the eastern façade of the
factory gained a more composed, ordered look. The eastern wall of the erecting room
faced directly onto North Avenue; it is easily seen from a number of vantage points along
9
North Avenue as you approach the factory from the east. The erecting room addition is 3
and a half stories high, with a gabled roof and skylight. While the façade is done in brick,
to be consistent with the older additions, the center of the new addition has a large, glass
window that is done in a rounded, arch-like shape. This large window and the pointed
gable roof are reminiscent of the vaulted roofs and large stained glass windows prevalent
in ecclesiastical architecture. While this type of design would seem to be inconsistently
used in a mere factory building, its use
here would suggest that Moller wanted
to project an image of his factory that
went beyond industrial and utilitarian
imagery. The church-like impression
created by this façade makes a direct
reference to the type of product Moller
was creating; the organs were built
Figure 7: Eastern Façade of Moller Organ Factory.
Personal photograph.
primarily for use in churches,
synagogues, and other houses of worship around the world.
The new façade also had utilitarian purposes on the interior as well. Since it was
larger than the older erecting room, Moller used this new space to exhibit a large organ
for visitors. In this way, the space became an extension of Moller’s public side in the
interior as well as the exterior of the building. During its heyday, the company used to
hire out teenagers from the town to give tours during the summer months. The new
erecting room, with its 3-story demonstration organ, was the highlight of the tour.6 In
addition to serving as a showcase space, the interior allowed the organ assemblers to have
6
Fitzsimmons Interview.
10
access to light for most of the day through the large eastern window and skylight. Today,
the Eastern Organ Pipe Company is still using this space for assembly and shipment.
While the Moller Company itself no longer exists and the majority of the factory
building is unoccupied, anybody who approaches the site from North Avenue sees the
eastern façade, and intuitively knows that something related to the church occurred at this
site. The design of the new erecting room façade, and the way it faces directly onto North
Avenue created powerful imagery that can still be read today, even though pipe organs
are no longer being made at the factory. Moller believed that the craft of organ building
had reverent qualities to it, and that the construction of a pipe organ was a noble and
moral activity. Moller projected this image of his work and his company onto the public
façade of his building, allowing visitors today the opportunity to see the religious heritage
of the organ building craft in the architecture of the factory itself.
Figure 8: Erecting room exterior and interior. Photograph from the author and interior
view from the papers of Peter Moller Daniels.
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Moller and the Craft Tradition; Organ Building and the Social Value of
Labor
The craft of organ building and its history as a trade long predated M.P. Moller’s
factory in Hagerstown. Yet the ancient legacy of this profession and its rebirth in
America are intertwined Moller’s life and with the life of his company and factory
building.
A form of the craft of organ building can be dated to the ancient Greeks and
Romans, but the tradition that Mathias P. Moller embraced dates from 9th century
Germany. Organ building became an established industry in medieval Germany and
France, although the instrument was not adopted for church use until the 14th century.
The modern organ form, which includes the pneumatic bellows, multiple keyboards,
wind chests, and mechanized key and stop action, was completed in Germany in the 15th
century. Organ styles varied depending on the particular region, however, and different
cultural groups created distinctive tonal and visual characteristics in their organs.
Mathias Moller was part of this nearly ancient Germanic tradition of organ
building. He was born in September 1854 on the island of Bornholm in Denmark. His
family was traditionally small farmers, but the German-Danish War of 1862 devastated
the local economy, and young Moller needed to find a new vocation. At the age of 14,
Moller left Bornholm for the town of Ronne and apprenticed himself to a cabinetmaker.
He left that position shortly afterwards due to poor pay and apprenticed himself again to a
carriage maker in Allinge. At this point in his life, Moller’s vocation was devoted entirely
to woodworking; he had had no musical training or background. In 1872, Moller
immigrated to the United States with his sister and brother-in-law; he went with them to
12
Manhattan, but soon left New York and joined his half-brother George Moller in Warren,
Pennsylvania. George was an employee of Greenlund Brothers, a furniture manufacturing
company that offered Mathias Moller the opportunity to use his years of skill as a
woodworker. Several months later, Moller left Greenlund and went to work for a
woodworker in Erie, Pennsylvania; this company, named Derrick and Felgemaker, made
organs, and this was where Moller received his first training in the pipe organ business.
In a reminiscence about his early life, Moller remarked that “ I was not a
musician—I was just a woodworker. It seemed to me the finest thing in the world that
could be done with wood was to make it into an organ. A carriage was a utility, but to
find and fix, in something you had made out of wood, all the tones and harmonies of
music, had something mysterious and reverent about it…”.7 So while Moller saw his craft
as that of the woodworker, his ambition was to use that craft to its highest purpose, that
of organ making.
Moller worked in Erie for two years, learning the tuning and timing of the
instrument, until he built his own organ on 1875. At that time, Moller had returned to
Warren to work with his brother. His career began when he sold his first completed organ
to the Warren Swedish Lutheran Church.
After struggling in Warren with little outside financing, or capital, Moller
received a lucrative offer from the city of Hagerstown, which was located just south of
the Maryland-Pennsylvania line in Washington County, Maryland. Moller moved to
Hagerstown in 1881 at the behest of the town’s businessmen, including the Governor
William Hamilton and Senator Lewis McComas. It seems that the modern tradition of
luring businesses away from other towns was alive and well even in the 19th century.
7
Sarah Newton, 5. Quoted from Success Magazine. Feb. 1925. By J.K. Mumford.
13
Moller established his first plant near the fairgrounds in 1881, but after the building
burned down he moved to the present site on North Prospect Street in 1895.
The craft tradition of organ building continued at Moller’s Hagerstown factory
well into the 20th century. Building an organ is a
complete design process that involves organ
architects, engineers, and designers. No two organs
are alike, and each is made to fit the design and
spatial configurations of their future interior spaces.
Figure 9: An organ architect at
work with his scale drawings.
From 1981 promotional brochure.
The engineers first meet with customers and draw up
preliminary plans; at times they even create scale
models in the studio of the church interiors and organ
lofts, in the same manner as our architects do for
commissions today. Then the organ architects create
blueprints or ‘chamber drawings’ that are used in the
10-12 month building process for each individual
organ. All of the cabinet workings and designs are original, and this is the most skilled
labor involved in the organ building process.
The hierarchy of labor in an organ factory clearly places the woodworkers and
cabinetmakers at the top. While the tuning and musical components of an organ may
seem to be the most difficult and mysterious part of the process, Peter Daniels points out
that “organ building is glorified cabinetmaking … [and] the artistic end of it has been
romanced all way out of proportion … it’s [the musical tuning] an art, but you can teach
14
[it].”8 While the romance of organ building certainly comes from the industries
connection to an ancient craft tradition, generations of the Moller family have clearly
believed that these skills can all be taught, and that the mystery lies in the completed
product, not in the labor itself.
Figure 10: The different labor hierarchies in the factory. At left is a flue voicer; in the middle a
woodworker; and at far right, an inspector in the woodyard.
The hierarchy of skilled labor in the factory was not, however, always easily
accepted by those who were not woodworkers or flue voicers, and hence, not at the upper
levels of the pay scale. Moller paid his employees according to their skill level and thus
the most skilled employees—the woodworkers, followed closely by the tuners and
voicers—were paid more than the people who ran the wiring, dried the wood, assembled
the organ, or who performed other duties in the factory. The friction between different
classes of workers can be seen in a 1903 labor strike at the factory, which was the only
unionized strike against Moller until the late 1980s.
8
Daniels Interview.
15
According to Sarah Newton’s thesis on M.P. Moller, in 1903, a “professional
propagandist was sent to preach unionism to the employees.”9 After months of agitation,
most of the workers went on strike, but “the older and more skillful workers … remained
at their benches.”10 While Newton never explicitly says that it was the woodworkers who
stayed at the job, it can be presumed that the ‘more skillful’ workers were indeed the
woodworkers who were at the top of the factory’s labor hierarchy. Better paid and longer
employed, these workers presumably felt that their wages were adequate, and thus they
did not join the strike. Despite claims to egalitarianism and camaraderie amongst all the
organ employees, the situation must not have been as equal or as benign as Moller
believed if the majority of his work force walked out after only a few months of unionist
‘agitation.’ The strike did not last long, however, and soon after the initial walk out,
entire workforce returned to the factory. Newton does not state what the employees
wanted from Moller, but she does allude to Moller’s treatment of the situation. She
comments, “whatever his personal feelings toward unionism, Moller’s obvious duty was
to protect the interests of those who remained.”11 The interests of these remaining
workers, the ‘oldest and most skillful’, were inextricably tied to the protection of their
higher salary and to maintaining the integrity of the labor hierarchy at the factory. One
can infer that ‘protecting their interests’ meant keeping the wage scale near to what it was
before the strike. Thus the traditional hierarchy of labor in the factory was preserved and
M.P. Moller’s only brush with a union organized strike ended.
9
Sarah Newton 16.
Ibid.
11
Ibid.
10
16
The Moller Landscape in Hagerstown
Early Factory and Houses
The evidence of the Moller legacy can be seen in other buildings besides the main
Moller factory on Prospect Street. It is present in many other commercial and civic
structures dotting the urban landscape of the city. Moller’s city building efforts city can
also be seen in Moller’s first Hagerstown factory that was located on Potomac Avenue
north of Broadway. The land for that factory was also acquired for Moller by members of
the local community. As part of the deal to bring Moller to Hagerstown from
Pennsylvania, members of the town offered “to place at his disposal every possible
financial assistance to build an imposing factory in their city, while his only obligation
was to guarantee constant employment of no less than eight men.”12 To seal the deal,
“some 19 or 20 firms and individuals became jointly the mortgages of a lot of land on
which the $450 factory was to be built.”13 Moller paid off this mortgage in ten years. By
April of 1881, Moller opened operations in a two-story brick building with dimensions of
approximately 75 x 200 ft.14 In 1881, that area of the town was outside the city limits, and
the streets were not paved or graded. Moller lived near his new factory and paid to have
road improvements done on the nearby streets. While this factory burned to the ground in
1895, the memory of Moller in the area can be seen in some of the basic improvements
that he made before that section of Potomac became part of the city itself.
Moller’s legacy in Hagerstown can also be seen in his residence. Moller lived in
two houses in Hagerstown; only one of these structures still exists, but both were in close
12
Sarah Newton, 9.
Ibid.
14
Ibid.
13
17
proximity to his respective factories. The first Moller residence in Hagerstown has been
town down, and no known pictures of it exist. When Moller completed his new house at
441 North Potomac, he donated the building to Washington County and it became the
first Washington County Hospital. Today, the building no longer exists; a Sheetz gas
station and grocery store is on the site. Peter Daniels, M.P. Moller’s grandson, described
the building as “an enormous Victorian looking house, [with] lots of turrets on it.”15
While Moller did not build this house himself, he purchased it because it was located
across the street from the site of his original factory building on the then northern edge of
the city. Since Moller ran the factory himself, oversaw every aspect of production, and
taught many of his new workers the organ making craft, it was probably essential that he
be as physically close to the site as was possible.
The same relationship between the site of factory and house existed with the new
factory complex that Moller built in 1903 on 441 North Prospect Street.16 While his new
house was located on North Potomac Street, both house and the new factory could be
accessed on the east-west axis of North Avenue. The two buildings were only a few
blocks away from one another. Even as he aged, Moller could still easily get from his
house to the factory.
Today the Moller family has no involvement with either the house or the factory
building. This does not mean, however, that the family’s influence is absent from these
two sites. The connection between home and factory was physically evident in the siting
of Moller’s second home. While today there seems to be little connection between the
extravagant houses on North Potomac and the quite factory and smaller neighborhood on
15
16
Daniels Interview.
From Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation website: http://www.dat.state.md.us/.
18
North Prospect, the two sites were intimately connected by the planned siting and the
usage of the Moller family. This shows that while the neighborhoods might currently be
physically distinct from one another, an underlying connection once existed between the
two. This connection of uses could possibly be recreated at some point to join together
two seemingly opposing areas of the city, by knitting together the residential and
industrial fabrics into a recreated urban tapestry.
The “Moller Church”
Another example of Moller’s involvement in the broader
physical landscape of Hagerstown would be the St. John’s
Lutheran Church, which has existed in Hagerstown since
1795.17 When M. P. Moller first arrived in Hagerstown in 1881,
he joined the congregation of that church. During Moller’s
lifetime, he was personally responsible for installing a new
Figure 11: The "Moller
Church." From papers
of Peter Moller Daniels.
organ, new pews, and his woodworkers redid the finishings
and designs on the woodwork in the church. The entire
Moller family worshipped in that space, and in time it even became known as the “Moller
Church.”18 This space, while not one of Moller’s industrial or commercial buildings,
acted as an extension of his influence in the civic realm of the city. His philanthropy in
rebuilding and shaping the physical interior space of this church created an indelible
impression in the minds of Hagerstown residents that remains to this day. Thus the
17
18
Sarah Newton, 11.
Sarah Newton, 12.
19
cultural memory of Moller and the presence of his family has been firmly impressed upon
the space of this building.
The Dagmar Hotel
The Dagmar Hotel is another example of how the memory of Moller persists in
Hagerstown despite the fact that the family no longer has any vested interest in the
building. The Dagmar was constructed by M.P. Moller in 1911, and was named after his
daughter, who was in turn named after the medieval Queen Dagmar of Denmark. The
Dagmar Hotel, located in the corner of Antietam and Summit Avenues, took advantage of
the booming commercial and industrial enterprises of the city; it catered to business
people and was billed as the leading hotel in town for tourists. An original brochure
advertising the hotel claims that the Dagmar had the following amenities:
[The Dagmar] is absolutely fireproof, it being of concrete construction, cool in
summer and warm in winter … It is six stoires high, contains 80 rooms, 56 of which have
private baths, and hot and cold running water in all rooms … The roof garden commands
a very magnificent view of the city. The hotel is conducted on the European plan, and a
fine dining room is operated in connection … This hotel is centrally located, opposite the
Post Office, and B & O R.R. Station, and one square from the C.V. [Cumberland Valley]
and N.W.R.R. [Norfolk and Western] Stations, and within one block of the business
district of the city.19
“The Dagmar.” Promotional Brochure. (Hotels Folder. Washington County Historical Society.
Hagerstown, Maryland.) Also found in Ora Ann Ernst, “Pride of the City – Dagmar, 80 Years in the
News,” 1991. (Hotels Folder. Washington County Historical Society. Hagerstown, Maryland.)
19
20
This hotel was technologically modern for the time and used
concrete as a new structural material to help keep the building
fireproof. Moller’s many experiences with fires at his factory may
have convinced him that concrete would be a more efficient and safe
building material to use in the center of the downtown.20
Figure 12: The Dagmar
Hotel. From promotional
brochure.
The Auto Factories and Moller Apartments
M.P. Moller’s outside business interests did not end with
the Dagmar Hotel. He also entered the automobile business during the 1920s at
approximately the same time that production was peaking in his organ business. Moller’s
automobile ventures also had a lasting impact on the urban fabric of Hagerstown, and
while the auto building industry itself no longer exists in the town, the structures Moller
acquired in the course of this venture continue to carry on this man’s entrepreneurial
legacy.
Automobile manufacturing began in Hagerstown in 1903. Col. Albert Pope, who
had been a bicycle maker, decided to buy the Crawford Manufacturing Plant and used it
to produce new automobiles. Pope used his factory at 901 Pope Avenue for his business,
but an economic recession in 1907 caused him to put the company into receivership and
the factory closed. After the sale of his business, Crawford used the money to start his
own automobile manufacturing plant. With backing from M.P. Moller and other
investors, Crawford turned his stable at the corner of Surrey and Summit Avenues into a
According to M.P. Moller’s grandson, Peter Moller Daniels, one of the main motivations behind building
the hotel was the fact that his visiting African American clients could not find lodging in the city. Many
wealthy African American congregations from across the country were purchasing Moller organs, and
when they visited the Hagerstown factory, they needed decent places to stay. So M.P. Moller built the
Dagmar Hotel to meet the needs of his clients, and to generate more income from a profitable commercial
venture.
20
21
new factory building. In 1922, Moller became the majoroity stockholder in the company
and essentially took over the entire business. In that year, Moller began production of his
own luxury automobile car: the Dagmar.
Moller moved the location of his new
business in 1923. According to the
Maryland Automobile Manufacturers
index,
“In 1923 the boilers in the Summit
Avenue plant of the Crawford Automobile
Company [Moller would change the name
to the Moller Motor Car Co. in 1924] were
found to be in need of major repairs or
replacement. A decision was made to
move manufacturing and assembling into a large building at 901 Pope Avenue. In the
intervening years since the end of auto production, the Pope Avenue plant had been used
…for the production of war materials during World War I and more recently for the
manufacturing of steel caskets. Huge metal presses were already in the Pope Avenue
plant. Other equipment was moved from the Summit Avenue location. The relocation
was completed by the end of the year.”21
Figure 13: Dagmar automobile. From
Washington County Historical Society.
Moller brought out new Dagmar models every year from 1922 – 1927. He produced a
variety of models from a petite sedan to a nine-passenger touring car to a flashy sports car
that boasted a top speed of 87 mph.22
While the Dagmar sedans were luxurious, the bulk of Moller’s orders were from
taxicab companies. The company’s first order came from the Luxor Cab Manufacturing
Company of New York in late 1923. The order was for 300 taxicabs at a cost of
“Moller Car Company.” Maryland Automobile Manufacturers. ?? publisher. ?? date. 48-49.
(Automobiles Folder. Washington County Historical Society, Hagerstown, Maryland.)
22
Keith Snider, “ Hagerstown’s Auto Industry had a Brief Heyday,” The Daily Mail, September 30, 1984.
Automobiles Folder. (Washington County Historical Society, Hagerstown, Maryland.)
21
22
$700,000.23 Until production ceased in the 1930s, Moller Motor Cars made taxis that
were used in Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.
Despite its success, the Company closed in 1938 shortly after M.P. Moller’s death.
The factory at 901 Pope Avenue still exists and is currently being renovated into
an apartment building. It is an enormous
site, however, and part of the building is
also being used by the Hagerstown Organ
Company, Inc. Interestingly, while Moller
never produced any of his organ parts in
this building, previous employees from the
Figure 14: 901 Pope Avenue. Site of Moller
Motor Car Company, 1923-1927. From
Washington County Historical Society.
Moller Pipe Organ Company started this
small organ shop and are now using this space. The Hagerstown Organ Company, which
has been operating out of the site since 1992, makes new pipe organ parts and provides
rebuilding and upgrading services on older organ models.24 This interesting coincidence
shows how the Moller legacy continues at the site of his old automobile plant, but instead
of housing car manufacturing, it now holds the remnants of his pipe organ business.
While Moller moved operations into the Pope Avenue factory in 1923, he still
owned the Summit Avenue site. After moving production to the Pope Avenue site,
Moller reused the old automobile factory by turning it into an apartment complex. Moller
rehabilitated the building, removed the machinery and equipment, and opened the new
apartments for residents in 1925. The building has a U-shape and is built entirely of
brick. When Moller rehabbed it, however, he covered the brick down to the foundations
Mindy Marsden. Exploring Washington County’s Industrial Heritage: Automobile Manufacturing.
Washington County Historical Society. Hagerstown, Maryland.
24
2001 Business and Industry Directory. Washington County, MD. 38.
23
23
with rough swirled cream-colored stucco. He added centered mission-shaped parapets on
the roof of the main façade (the Surrey Avenue side), and along the Summit Avenue
façade. The roof
has terra cotta
tile edging
around all the
sides. The
building also
has ironwork
balconies and
decorative
Figure 15: The old Crawford Auto plant reinvented as the Moller
Apartments. Personal photograph.
ceramic tile
work around
several of the entrances. This building represents an excellent example of the Spanish
Eclectic Style, and it retains all of these decorative features today. The building also
currently contains two efficiency apartments, four two-bedroom/two living room
apartments, and eighteen two-bedroom apartments. This building is the only commercial
Moller site that is currently protected by an historic preservation designation. It has been
listed as a contributing property in the Hagerstown City Park Historic District, an area
that is also designated as a National Register Historic District.25
“Moller Apartments.” Inventory # WA-HAG-169. Maryland Historical Trust. Maryland Inventory of
Historic Properties Form. (Hotel Folder. Washington County Historical Society, Hagerstown, Maryland.)
25
24
Conclusion
The memory of Moller’s legacy still exists in Hagerstown due in no small part to
the continued existence and use of so many buildings that were associated with his life
and enterprises. This lasting impression on the cityscape can be put to good use in the
future by creating an awareness and appreciation for the history of Moller and his
business. Each of the buildings that Moller was associated with in his lifetime are
currently being put to good, productive uses except for the most important building of all:
his organ factory on Prospect Hill. While a small part of the factory is currently occupied
by the Eastern Organ Pipes Company, the majority of it is vacant. An adaptive reuse
scheme for this building should take note of the other reuses that currently work well in
Moller’s other buildings. While his main house on Potomac Avenue is still a residence,
and the St. John’s Church is still a house of worship, the Moller Apartments, Dagmar
Hotel, and the Pope Avenue automobile plant have all changed ownership and uses a
number of times over the decades. Each have been used for different types of business,
but through the preservation of their architecture and sympathetic reuse strategies, these
buildings still retain a connection to Moller and to the eras in which they were built.
Yet none of these outside enterprises could have existed without the wealth that
was generated at the main factory. The employees at that site built organs, but their labor
and products also helped to indirectly build the city of Hagerstown. Understanding the
use and history of this building is key to understanding how it helped to contribute to the
broader applications of Moller’s industrial and civic interests in the city. Thus the future
adaptive reuse and preservation of this site is crucial to helping future generations
understand, interpret, and forge a connection to the broader physical landscape of the city
of Hagerstown.
25
Appendix A: Floorplan and Elevation of Moller Factory
Figure 16: Circa 1930s. From papers of Peter Moller Daniels.
26
Bibliography
2001 Business and Industry Directory. Washington County, MD.
Brunner, Raymond J. That Ingenious Business; Pennsylvania German Organ Builders.
Birdsboro: The Pennsylvania German Society, 1990.
“The Dagmar.” Promotional Brochure. Hotels Folder. Washington County Historical
Society. Hagerstown, Maryland.
Daniels, Peter Moller. Interview by Rebeccah Ballo and Gabrielle Harlan. November
2002.
Environmental Site Assessment for M.P. Moller, Inc. Hagerstown: Associated
Environmental Services, Inc., February 22, 1990. In Papers of Peter Moller
Daniels.
Ernst, Ora Ann, “Pride of the City - Dagmar, 80 years in the news,” ?? newspaper, 1991.
Automobile Folder. Washington County Historical Society, Hagerstown,
Maryland.
Fitzsimmons, Brendan. Interview by Rebeccah Ballo and Gabrielle Harlan. October
2002.
Jones, William J, “ M.P. Moller Company Pipes Up the World,” The News American,
April 15, 1973. Baltimore, Maryland.
Marsden, Mindy. “Exploring Washington County’s Industrial Heritage: Automobile
Manufacturing.” Automobile Folder. Washington County Historical Society,
Hagerstown, Maryland.
Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation website.
http://www.dat.state.md.us/
“Mathias Peter Moller.” New York: The Writer’s Press Association, April 20, 1935. In
Moller File. Western Maryland Reading Room. Washington County Public
Library.
“Moller Apartments.” Inventory # WA-HAG-169. Maryland Historical Trust. Maryland
Inventory of Historic Properties Form. Hotel Folder. Washington County
Historical Society, Hagerstown, Maryland
“Moller Car Company.” Maryland Automobile Manufacturers. ?? publisher. ?? date. 4849. Automobiles Folder. Washington County Historical Society, Hagerstown,
Maryland.
27
M.P. Moller Pipe Organs. Hagerstown: M.P. Moller Company, 1929. In Moller File.
Western Maryland Reading Room. Washington County Public Library.
Newton, Sarah M. “The Story of The M.P. Moller Organ Company.” Master’s Thesis,
Union Theological Seminary, 1950. .
Snider, Keith, “ Hagerstown’s Auto Industry had a Brief Heyday,” The Daily Mail,
September 30, 1984. Automobiles Folder. Washington County Historical Society,
Hagerstown, Maryland.
28