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 131
Scan 131
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
17 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 109. See the scan on archive.org.
1in close proximity to the strings—after the manner of the upright action soft-pedal" 17 of 1890. Some other ingenious principles were also included in this patent. Lemanuel became quite noted in his time among pianoforte makers as an expert, but his instruments were surpassed all along by those of his brother. 18 He went out of business in 1863 and died some time later.
3About 1826 Timothy Gilbert went into partnership with Ebenezer R. Currier, who had also been apprenticed to John Osborn. He (Currier) had obtained a patent in 1831 for a pianoforte "with a shifting action like the grand for horizontal instruments, also placing the keyboard midway so as to give a compass of seven octaves, according to the stringing diagram and other models." 19 He also patented a down-striking grand action.
5George Vose has in his possession a beautiful instrument over one hundred years old made by Currier & Co. It has a perfect harp scale, a half-iron plate, six octaves and one pedal. The case is finely finished crotch mahogany.
7Some time about 1840 the firm Timothy Gilbert & Company became very important in the trade and had many agencies scattered over the country. In New York they had in 1848 a direct agency at [address hidden] with Berry & Waters first and then Horace Waters as agent. Timothy Gilbert in 1841 patented ideas and inventions relative to uprights and squares, and outlined a modification of the English "flying action" (tape-check action), ideas afterward claimed by Wornum in England. 18
9"Timothy Gilbert anticipated the present upright action in use in the United States and bequeathed to the trade many very potent technical ideas in connection with the improvement and development of the upright." 20
11A great stir was caused by their Aeolian-pianos in 1847. 21 They were made after the designs of Obed Coleman whose patent of April 17, 1844 they had bought in 1846. The pianoforte part had a beautiful tone quality but it did not stay in tune with the organ section, whose free reeds remained in tune. They also took over several other patents for minor details between 1850 and 1860.
1318 Spillane, Daniel. History of the American Pianoforte p. 91.
1419 Ibid p. 96.
1520 Ibid p. 46.
1621 Ibid pp. 91 & 92.
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