480 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



some of whose family were prominently known on the early 

 American stage, was the inventor and j^atentee of the latter 

 instrument. It was produced after fourteen years of persistent 

 endeavor, and, although many persons had previously attempted 

 to make an upright piano-forte of practical value, Southwell was 

 the first to solve the problem in 1807, and it is out of his instru- 



FiG. 9. — Southwell's Piano, a. d. 1798. In tlie possession of A. Simpson, Esq., Dundee, 



Scotland. 



ment that all subsequent models and modifications of the upright 

 sprang. He also originated the first meritorious upright action 

 ever produced up to his time. This is still known in London as 

 the " Irish " action. One of Southwell's earliest attempts is illus- 

 trated in Fig. 0. 



It is noteworthy that John Isaac Hawkins, an Englishman, the 

 inventor of ever-pointed pencils, and an engineer by profession, 

 began the manufacture of uprights in PhiladeliDhia in 1800, He 

 took out a national patent in that year for his instrument, which 

 he named " portable grand," and which created quite a furor in 

 that city at the time, 



Thomas Jefferson happened to see one of Hawkins's " portable 

 grands " in 1800, while visiting Philadelphia, which he speaks of 

 in the following letter to his daughter : " A very ingenious, 

 modest, and poor young man. in Philadelphia, has invented one of 

 the prettiest improvements in the piano-forte that I have ever 



