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 158
Scan 158
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
16 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 136. See the scan on archive.org.
1passes through the reeds, causing them to "Speak" into the chest, thus giving a more refined tone.
3James Carhart, who took out a patent in 1846 for a single suction or exhaust bellows, was the first to apply this system to the melodeon. James A. Bazin, a French Huguenot who came to the United States from the Island of Jersey in 1778 first to Boston and later settled in Canton, Massachusetts, was an early instrument maker who developed his "Patent Organ Pianoforte" probably from the lap organ, as he also made these instruments. As an elderly man he was Town Clerk of Canton, 1840-49. He also invented some of the first thread winding machines.
5Generally there were two pedals, the right for the single bellows and the left for a swell, which started so suddenly as to give an explosive forte effect. The cases resembled a square pianoforte. One of the best instruments was the new organ-melodeon made by the George A. Prince Company of Buffalo, one of the pioneer and largest melodeon manufacturers. This had two banks of keys, four sets of reeds and one independent pedal set of one and one-half octaves.
7Charles E. Austin, presumably son of Charles Austin, Concord, New Hampshire, reed organ maker, was in Lowell from 1876 till his death about 1915. He made there pianofortes and springs, as he devised the curious "grasshopper-spring," giving a more equal pressure on the bellows which was used later in pipe organs by all makers,4 probably after Hamlin's discovery.
9This was the general situation of reed organ manufacture before Emmons Hamlin, a gifted mechanic of the Prince Company, discovered in 1849 the art of voicing reeds by slightly bending or twisting the tongue. The revolutionizing results of this discovery are discussed in the contribution of the Mason & Hamlin Company. What information was available about other Boston reed organ manufacturers none of whom are now active is given in Appendix II.
11b. Mason & Hamlin's Contribution
13The two partners of this company became acquainted through the Mecca of Boston's musical life in 1854, the Oliver Ditson store. Lowell Mason had met there Emmons Hamlin from Buffalo and suggested to his son Henry, just returned from his study of music
154 Statement of William B. Goodwin, Lowell, Massachusetts, organ builder.
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