John W. Merrow

Title

John W. Merrow

Subject

Birth Date

August 15, 1874

Birthplace

New Hampton, New Hampshire, United States

Death Date

April 11, 1927

Occupation

Theater Architect

Biographical Text

Merrow graduated from New Hampton Literary Institute (now known as New Hampton School) in 1892 and from the New Hampton Commercial College in 1893. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1897 with an A.B. degree and later attended the architectural course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

His first professional association was with the architectural firm of Wheelwright & Haven in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1900, he was the architect of the East Blue Hill Library in East Blue Hill, Maine. Also in 1900, he redesigned the interior of the New Hampton Community Church on Main Street in New Hampton, New Hampshire.

In 1905, he was the architect of Proctor's Palace Theatre and Proctor's Palace Roof Theatre, on Market Street between Halsey and Washington Streets, in Newark, New Jersey. This was one of the rare "double decker" theatre, an eight-story complex with a large 2,300-seat theatre at ground level and a smaller theatre of about 900 seats occupying the top four floors beneath the roof. This theatre is described more fully in Warren G. Harris's article under Frederick Freeman Proctor.

After 1909, he was the architect of Frederick Freeman Proctor's 1,100-acre (4 km2) country estate, known as "Proctoria," in Central Valley, New York. In 1921, he designed the Theta Delta Chi fraternity house in Hanover, New Hampshire on the basis of plans created by Arthur Bradley Barnes.

Marrow was a member of the New York Athletic Club, Dartmouth Club, Technology Club of New York, Theta Delta Chi fraternity, and the Union Lodge of Masons in Bristol, New Hampshire. He never married.

Files

Proctor'stheater2.jpg

Citation

“John W. Merrow,” DANA, accessed November 18, 2024, https://dana.njit.edu/items/show/880.

Output Formats

Item Relations

This Item creator of Item: Proctor's Palace Theatre

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