George Welton Marquis was born in Walla Walla, Washington on March 4, 1916. He was a well-regarded musician and an expert in early music and music theory. The George Welton Marquis Collection, which spans from roughly 1921 to 1968, contains phonograph records, reel-to-reel tapes, and sheet music, as well as manuscripts for books, correspondences, scrapbooks, photographs, medals, notebooks, and slides.