J. W. Carter Photos
published around 1908
depict the Crown Piano & Organ Company, located on the ground
floor of the
first Hotel Denison at 500 West Main Street in Denison. J. W. Carter
was the
store manager.
Location of the Crown Piano and Organ Agency groung floor at 500 W. Main St. "The Denison Hotel Building, Carter's Music Store and Pace's Furniture Store on First Floor." Robinson, Frank M., comp. Industrial Denison. [N.p.] : Means-Moore Co., [ca. 1901]. Page 7.
Crown Pianos were products of the George P. Bent Company, based in Chicago, Illinois. This company produced a large number of quality pianos, organs, and player pianos in the period under discussion. 
George P. Bent Company —Crown & Concord Pianos Chicago, Illinois
Unless James Watkins Carter had two wives, there appear to have been two men in Texas named J. W. Carter who were in the business of selling pianos. One was James Watkins Carter, born in Talladega County, Alabama, on December 22, 1850. As the eleventh of thirteen children, he was raised by his oldest sister, Maggie Carter Jackson, on a farm adjoining the Jameson farm. James's father, Charles Carter, was a self-made man. When the boy was 21 (1871), his father gave him $100 and a gold watch and said he was now on his own. He went to Mobile, Alabama, on a Saturday night, put the money in a bank, and lost it the next Monday in a bank failure. He courted his future wife, Mary Elizabeth Jameson (1852–1927), while he was attending Oxford (Alabama) College with her in 1870. He came to Texas in 1873 with Judge Wellington Vandiver (an early schoolmate) and was married on January 15, 1874, in Brenham, Texas. All three of his children were born there.James started the Carter Music Store in the McIntyre Hotel in Brenham on January 15, 1877. He entered the piano business by accident. He had been selling sewing machines in Atlanta, Georgia, and later secured the agency for the Estey organ. When he went to Texas, he had an opportunity of entering the piano business as a result of the financial difficulties of a dealer there. He moved his store to Belton, Texas, in 1886, when Baylor College for Women was started. He was still there when the Census was taken in 1900 but certainly could have been in Denison in 1901. Finally, James moved his store to Houston, to 706 Main Street, on February 1, 1906, when that town began to really grow. The Carter Piano Company was publicized extensively in trade publications. The store moved to 819 Main, to 1620 Main, and finally to San Jacinto and Main (1201 Leeland). In 1919, J. W. Carter Music Company opened a branch store in Beaumont, Texas, "the city which oil has developed." The store, to be managed by James himself, would handle Steinway, Sohmer, Vose & Sons, Kurtzmann, Apollo, and other leading brands. Meanwhile, James's younger son, James Robinson Carter (1877—1942), would manage the Houston operation.A year later, another of James's sons, William Henry Carter (1881–1933), was manager of another Houston firm, Ross & Heyer Piano Company. In 1923, James and Mary had a residence at the Carter Apartments in Houston. The Houston City Directory that year listed officers of the Carter Music Company: J. W. Carter, president; J. R. Carter and R. E. Brooks, vice-presidents; W. H. Carter, secretary; and Inez Carter Mabry of Beaumont, treasurer. J. R. Carter officially became head of the family business in 1929. In 1930, James was listed in the Census as vice president of a bank. He died of a heart attack in Houston on September 12, 1941, and was buried in Glenwood Cemetery. His children remained active in the business.
The second J. W. Carter in the piano business in Texas was James W. Carter, born in Georgia or Texas in November 1852. His wife was Alice Pauline Carter. In the 1900 Census, he was a music dealer in Cisco, Eastland County, Texas. Ten years later, he and Alice were in Houston, where he was an agent selling pianos. By 1920, he and a new wife, Ella M., age 39, had moved to Beaumont, where he was a salesman in a music store. At 69, he had two young daughters aged 5 and 3. Either of these two J. W. Carters could have been in Denison in 1901. In Denison in 1901, next door to the Crown Piano & Organ store was the A. S. Pace Furniture Company. A few years earlier, William L. Pace had operated a piano and organ store at 324 West Main. Later he and a brother-in-law married siblings and operated a piano business in Beaumont and then San Antonio. Yet another music business on Main Street in Denison was operated by Will Halton. 
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