MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS— THE PIANO-FORTE. 483 



I find a definite announcement in 1792, in the first number 

 of the Diary or Lowdon's Register, of February 12tli, in which 

 Messrs. Dodds & Claus, musical instrument manufacturers, 66 

 Queen Street, announce the "forte piano of their make, with their 

 own improvements." 



Piano-manufacturing in New England was begun by Benjainin 

 Crehore, in Boston, as early as 1798. He had a workshop at Mil- 

 ton, Mass., where he made violins and violoncellos many years 

 previously, but his first piano was produced some time in that 

 year. His workshop proved to be a national school for the art, so 

 to speak, for Alpheus Babcock and John Osboru, the celebrated 

 piano manufacturers of the period, 

 with whom Jonas Chickering learned 

 his business, were apprentices of Cre- 

 hore's. The first Chickering, there- 

 fore, sprang indirectly from the hit- 

 ter's modest factory. 



The pioneer makers in New York 

 were Davis, Gibson, Kersing, and Geib 

 — names now almost forgotten, al- 

 though old instruments of their pro- 

 duction may be found occasionally in 

 piano ware-rooms and country houses. 

 All of these were in business before 

 1800 and upward, but they never at- 

 tained prominence or wealth. 



The piano industry had attained 

 some footing in America toward 1829, 

 despite foreign competition, for in that 

 year twenty-five hundred pianos were 

 made here — nine hundred being pro- 

 duced in Philadelphia, eight hundred 

 in New York, seven hundred and sev- 

 enteen in Boston, and a considerable number in Baltimore and 

 Cincinnati. At that period the Loud Brothers, of Philadelphia, 

 were the leading American makers — a position assumed by Chick- 

 ering & Mackay toward 1840. In Boston, Osborn, Jonas Chicker- 

 ing, and Alpheus Babcock were established — the former being 

 one of the most distinguished of native piano-makers. Babcock, 

 who produced and patented his skeleton iron plate in 1825, moved 

 to Philadelphia in 1830, where he lived for a few years. 



Jonas Chickering began business in 1823, in partnership with 

 James Stewart, a practical piano-maker and inventor. Stewart 

 had been previously in business in Baltimore, but came North to 

 become a partner of Osborn, with whom he quarreled in a short 

 time, when a separation ensued. In 1826 Stewart went to Lon- 



FiG. 12.— Babcock's Skeleton Iron 

 Plates. 1. Patented December 

 17, 1825. 2. With iron ring, pat- 

 ented May 24, 1830. 



