Scan 369
The American history and encyclopedia of music .., 1908
10 lines. Read by computer on 8 September 2026. Printed page 317. See the scan on archive.org.
1perpendicular, and he contrives within that height to give his strings the same length as in a grand piano, and fixes three unisons to the same screw. It scarcely gets out of tune at all, and then, for the most part the three unisons are tuned at once."
3The German Advertiser in 1790 speaks with satisfaction of the high state of perfection to which instrument making had attained in Philadelphia. The home-made article in two respects was preferable to the imported, for the American instruments were screwed together instead of glued, and London-seasoned wood was not adapted to the dry changeable climate of this country.
5The art of clever advertising seems to have kept pace with the industry as the following notice from the first number of Louden's Register, issued Feb. 12, 1792, will show: "Messrs. Dodds and Claus, musical instrument manufactory, 66 Queen St., announces that the forte-piano is become so exceedingly fashionable in Europe that few polite families are without it. . . . The improvements which Messrs. Dodds and Claus have made in the forte-pianos have rendered it much more acceptable than those imported."
7However, most of the pianos used in the new republic still were sent over by European firms, by the Broadwoods (the oldest firm of keyboard instrument makers in existence), by the Clementis, by the Longmans and others. The founding of the fortunes of the house of Astor by John Jacob Astor, the first, is said partly to have been achieved by the importation of pianos. In 1791 there were twenty-seven pianos in Boston, and all of these had been made in London.
9It is quite possible that the first practical piano constructed in this country was made some time prior to 1803 by Benjamin Crehore, who lived in Milton, near Boston. Crehore made other musical instruments as well, such as violins, cellos, guitars, drums and flutes. There is a story that to sell his pianos, of which he made but ten or a dozen a year, Crehore put on them the imprint of London
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