Photographer Unknown, (Down by the Old Mill Stream)
“Down by the Old Mill Steam”, written by Tell Taylor, became one of the most popular songs of the 1900s. The publisher, Forster Music Publisher, Inc., sold four million copies.
Taylor wrote the song in 1908 while sitting on the banks of the Blanchard River in Findlay, Ohio. It is said that his friends persuaded him not to publish the song, believing it had no commercial value. Forster Music published it in 1910 and introduced it to the public with performances by the vaudeville quartet ‘The Orpheus Comedy Four’. The group performed it at a Woolworh store in Kansas City, selling all one thousand copies of its sheet music that Taylor had brought to the event. It is now a staple song for barbershop quartets.