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 130
Scan 130
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
13 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 108. See the scan on archive.org.
1Danforth, and Elijah Bullard. "Stray allusions to Osborn, about 1820-24, in occasional items in the Boston and New York papers, indicate that he was ranked as the very best piano-maker in the country."14 One of his square pianofortes with six legs and two drawers for music was in the exhibit held by Chickering & Sons in 1902. On business trips to Baltimore he had become acquainted with James Stewart, a Scotchman, who learned pianoforte making of the Harpers in Baltimore. In 1820 Mr. Osborn persuaded Mr. Stewart to enter into partnership with himself. Stewart was a pianoforte maker of ability with a brain fertile in improvements, among which was a better arrangement of the sounding board. The second patent issued to a Boston resident was given to him for this in 1822.15 He was probably the first manufacturer to export pianofortes out of the United States, for in 1817 from his Baltimore shop, [address hidden] corner of [address hidden], he had shipped to Havana and the West Indies. When Osborn and Stewart disagreed, both being quick-tempered men, James Stewart induced Jonas Chickering, whom he had met in Osborn's establishment, to become his partner in a shop on [address hidden] in 1823. This was the start of Chickering & Sons, whose presiding genius became the "Father" of the modern pianoforte.
3Osborn was at [address hidden] in 1820-21, at [address hidden] in 1823, later at [address hidden] where he remained until he moved to Albany in 1829 and died in New York in 1835.
5John Dwight, who subsequently became a partner of Newhall,16 applied for a patent in 1824, about sixteen months ahead of A. Babcock, for a "longitudinal iron bar," thus anticipating a minor feature of Babcock's iron plate.
7Timothy and Lemanuel Gilbert began business separately. Lemanuel was out of business a while, but started again in 1839 on [address hidden] "In 1841 he [Lemanuel] was granted a patent which was a modification of the square English fly action."… No hammers or hoppers were used, the jack setting in the hammer-heel after the style of the square action17 of the period of 1890. He patented a variety of improvements. The most significant was an upright action for which a patent was taken out as early as June 18, 1850. This had "a method of projecting the whole hammer
914 Spillane, Daniel. History of the American Pianoforte p. 57.
1015 Ibid p. 85.
1116 See Appendix I p. 250.
1217 Spillane, Daniel. History of the American Pianoforte p. 90.
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