07/24/2025
Remembering James Ephraim Clough's birthday - July 24, 1834.
James Ephraim Clough (pictured - born July 24, 1834, Horseheads, New York - died January 17, 1908, Detroit, Michigan) spent most of his childhood in Fulton, New York. When he was 19, he entered into the dry goods business with a partner in Oswego, New York. After a few years, his business burned and he nearly lost all that he had. At that point, James moved to Iowa and for a few years was involved in fur and ginseng trading there and in the neighboring states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. James moved to Detroit around 1860 and started a produce commission business. James Clough married Elizabeth Wallace of Detroit in 1862.
By 1863, James Clough became interested in the reed organ business, along with Simmons. The Clough & Warren company was founded initially by Alfred A. Simmons (born about 1808, New York - died January 12, 1894, Detroit, Michigan) and James Clough in 1850, as the Simmons & Clough Organ Company, in Detroit, Michigan. Business continued uneventfully until 1870, when Jesse H. Farwell was added as a special partner. Simmons left the company in 1874, with George Pascal Warren (born March 28,1840, Massachusetts - died December 3, 1912) taking over operations, and the company name was changed to Clough & Warren. George's brother Joseph Addison Warren also joined the company, and in 1899 when George retired, Joseph became the sole owner. The Warrens were former employees of the Estey Organ Company of Brattleboro, Vermont, and learned much of their trade there.
The Clough & Warren company's reputation and volume of output grew rapidly. Clough & Warren organs received the diploma of honor at the United States Centennial Exposition in 1876, and the grand prize medal at the Paris Exposition in 1878. In 1879, Queen Victoria of England bought a Clough & Warren organ for the people of the Pitcairn Islands. The organ was ornamented with a heart-shaped silver plate placed in the center above the keyboard, whose inscription read: "A present from the Queen to her loyal and loving Pitcairn Island subjects, in appreciation of their domestic virtues." When the captain of the H. M. S. Opal, who delivered the instrument, seated himself at the organ to strike a few chords of the national song of Great Britain, there was not a voice who did not join heartily in singing: "God save the Queen." The Queen gifted other instruments as well, such as one to the orphanage at Twickenenham Ferry. Another one of Clough & Warren's finest combination organs was sold to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales.
By 1882, Clough & Warren significantly upgraded their Detroit Factory, adding a new building adjacent to the existing complex, of 230 feet by 45 feet, at a cost of $75,000. Its expanded operation occupied most of a city block with over 400 feet of frontage. It contained an elegant suite of offices and fine showrooms occupying the first floor. Ten miles of iron pipe equipped the building to provide heat by steam radiation. As part of the new factory, a massive 160 horse-power engine built by the Cu**er Engine Company and two 100 horse-power boilers built by S. S. Pratt, both from Detroit, were installed. The driving wheel of 50 feet in circumference provided enough power to run the factory and produce three to four organs per hour and 7000 organs per year. Up to fifty different models were produced at their peak, with an employment of over 200 workers.
In 1889, Clough & Warren received an order from Melbourne, Australia for eleven cartloads of their organs, equating to fifty-five organs. Another fifty organs were ordered by the London offices, and additional orders were supplied to Calcutta, China, Europe, Russia, South America, and Mexico.
The company felt the changes of the times. shifting to piano production as the market for reed organs dwindled. Clough & Warren went bankrupt in 1911 and reorganized in 1913. By the Fall of 1910, the company made too many transactions, which drove it into receivership. The flood of business in the company's piano line required the purchase of materials for manufacturing. The materials were sold on short-term contracts, while the sales to piano dealers were sold on long-term contracts. Clough & Warren simply could not recover the funds from sales quickly enough to pay the mounting short-term debt.
The company discontinued organ production in 1916, selling the assets of the organ line to the William Wallace Putnam company (see the prior article published here, February 13, 2022). Production dropped sharply after the bankruptcy and the company focused on building phonographs.
