Books › Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937 › scan 129
Scan 129
Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937
14 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 107. See the scan on archive.org.
11820-1870, and another of these is now in the parlor of the House of the Seven Gables, Salem, Massachusetts.10
3Babcock's pianofortes ranked very high as far back as 1822. In 1824 he won a prize at the First Mechanical Arts Exhibition of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, as follows—"Premium no. 47 to the maker of the best horizontal piano is adjudged to A. Babcock of Boston for specimen no. 327 which is a horizontal pianoforte made for J. Mackay, Boston. It has received the high approbation of the judges. Every part of the interior mechanism has the highest finish and its tone and touch are excellent. Strings of the lower octaves are covered with flattened wire. It entitles its maker to the silver medal having been considered the best of the four square pianofortes exhibited."11 In 1825 he again won a silver medal at a similar exhibit. When A. Babcock went to Philadelphia in 1829 and joined J. G. Klemm, who had been an agent for Babcock pianofortes, Captain Mackay consulted Thomas Appleton about someone to take his place and Mr. Appleton recommended his joining Jonas Chickering.12
5According to the Columbia Sentinel, Mr. Mallet had a repository on [address hidden] in 1805 in which he had for sale an assortment of English and American pianofortes including those of Francis Shaw. The latter had been an expert pianoforte and musical instrument maker in London. He came from there via New York to Boston about 1804. "Shaw holds a significant place in the early Boston Records for he took out the first patent relative to an improvement in the pianoforte or to any musical instrument ever granted by the National Government to a resident of Massachusetts."13
7John Osborn was one of the foremost pianoforte merchants of the country from 1815 to 1835. In 1815 he was at "back of [address hidden]" and immediately became noted for the superiority of his pianofortes, coming into general notice for his instruments in New York and Philadelphia in 1819.14 In 1819 he moved to [address hidden] where he had as apprentices or journeymen Jonas Chickering, Lemanuel and Timothy Gilbert, John Dwight, William
910 For exact dates, names and addresses of the various affiliations of the Babcocks, Ebenezer Currier, Lemuel Gilbert (Daniel Spillane always speaks of him as Lemanuel), and Timothy Gilbert see Appendix I pp. 239-41.
1011 Spillane, Daniel. History of the American Pianoforte pp. 85 & 86.
1112 American Musician. "The Early Boston Piano Makers," Mr. Appleton's Statement.
1213 Spillane, Daniel. History of the American Pianoforte p. 54.
1314 Ibid p. 57.
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