Lincoln in PA

[Eva Elisabeth]

Bruce, all this info is fascinating, also - and especially - the picture, thanks for the link!

[bdornfeld]

Tonight I spoke with Jack Wyatt, who personally picked up the piano for us in Rochester and drove it down to Kansas City. He filled me in on a few details. We got the piano when our convention was in Rochester in July of 2006. The piano was actually located in a hallway of the Rochester city hall and our arrangements were made with the city manager. They had the same sign that we are using next to the piano. The folks at the city hall were glad to get the piano out of their way! Jack also mentioned the Brooks brothers of the Aeolian Corporation: Elmer (referred to previously as E.F. Brooks) and Allan and George. All three of them had a large roll in running the company in its final years. Jack remembers them along with Paul Monachino helping get the piano to us after the city hall. I hear that Paul is doing alright and will try to talk with him later this week.

[Rsmyth]

Fascinating Bruce! The provenance is comming to light!

[L Verge]

I remembered that the Keene piano question had popped up about thirty years ago, so I asked our librarian to do a check of the James O. Hall files at Surratt House. Here's what she found:

In a letter dated September 30, 1984, Mr. Hall wrote to a "Mrs. Young" that he had tracked down a rumor that a man in Fairfax, Virginia, had the Laura Keene piano that was at Ford's Theatre on the night of the assassination. The owner was a piano dealer named Richard McEvoy.

That afternoon, Mr. Hall, Dr. Terry Alford, and a John Anderson (piano history expert) had gone to a warehouse at Tyson's Corner to see the piano in storage. Mr. McEvoy explained that he had purchased the piano (an upright Chickering #26281) from a Mrs. Dillon, an elderly Washington widow whose husband had worked for the Washington Star. He said he had purchased it some twenty years previous. Mrs. Dillon had provided the Keene provenance. Mr. Anderson checked Chickering documents in his possession and found that the piano that they saw had been produced in the 1861-1865 period. Brass handles had been added on each end, obviously put there to facilitate moving it around.

Mr. McEvoy had with him a copy of the 7th Edition of Pierce Piano Atlas, put out by Mr. Bob Pierce, 1880 Termino, Long Beach, CA 90815. On page 331, there is a picture of this same piano captioned "Lincoln piano." In the background there is a picture of Lincoln, and Mr. Pierce as a young man is also shown. Evidently Mr. Pierce was alive and in California in 1984, because Mr. Hall is asking "Mrs. Young" to search out Pierce to determine if he knew how the Dillons acquired the piano, who had owned it before them, etc. There is no indication that Mrs. Young ever replied.

In addition, our files contain two Xeroxed photos of the Chickering Upright Piano, and the captions credit the Aeolian Corp. of East Rochester, NY. There is also a photo from the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan of a Chickering "used by Lincoln in the White House."

The photo of the piano shown on the website that you gave appears to be the same as in the photo mentioned above. Our photocopy, however, is not very clear, and the piano is positioned differently and without the accompanying bench. One can see the handles mentioned at either end.

[Rsmyth]

Bruce, You mentioned the piano on Abe's Log Cabin blog where a gentleman named Dan Shulla said "The piano that was in the Theater that night reportedly was kept in a warehouse in NYC for 100 years, with a hole in the top “like someone put their foot through it”. in 1966 or so, it went to Aeolyan American Piano Works (Rochester,NY) for repair. Repaired by Gerald D. Hutchinson (my grandfather)."
Had you ever heard this story of of Mr. Hutchinson?

[L Verge]

It would be interesting to see how many Chickerings #26281 were manufactured between 1861 and 65. I'm sure that Laura Keene's was not one-of-a-kind, which would make more needles in the hay stack to confirm.

[bdornfeld]

The Pierce Piano Atlas has been an important reference book for piano people for decades. The main part of it lists brands of pianos (over 12,000) and for many of them it lists the first serial number used for each year. For Chickering around this time it lists serial numbers for every five years and shows that in 1850 the first was 10,000; for 1855 the first was 15,400; for 1860 the first was 22,000; for 1865 the first was 27,000. That means they were building about 1,000 per year between 1860 and 1865. The numbers listed are rounded up or down for most makers. The Chickering #26,281 would have been built about 1864. Ours has the number 20,730 and was built about 1858. I have never seen anything about when Laura Keene bought her piano. The Chickering factory log books are in the Smithsonian. They are available for research on microfiche, but there are no plans to digitize them that I am aware of. This was proposed as a project for our foundation a few years ago, but we did not pursue it. Factory log books would show us how many of this size and style Chickering were built. They also often show who a piano was sold to, but usually this is to a piano store. Laura Keene was a big enough name at the time, that they may have written her name in the log book if there was a place for such notes. My colleague Bill Shull has seen these logs and may be able to tell me more about that likelihood.

The photo of Bob Pierce with the Chickering caught my eye also. The current edition of the Atlas is the 12th and the photo is on page 426. I emailed the family about the photo recently and got this reply from Larry Ashley, " I'm sorry, I do not have any current information on the Lincoln piano. My son still has the Theodore Roosevelt Chickering (pg. 424)" It is possible that this was taken in the Aeolian factory. I want to send a copy of it to Paul Monachino to see what he says. I spoke with him this week and he says that the piano was on display in the part of the complex they called "the shop". Also on display next to it was an small square piano hand built by Jonas Chickering and his old workbench. Paul also confirmed that the piano was there for many, many years. He did help get it moved to the East Rochester City Hall, at 120 West Commercial St, and later to the Piano Technicians Guild Foundation. Tony Argento was the city clerk whose name is on our paperwork for the donation.

I asked Paul about Elmer Brooks and the statement about not knowing if it was really Laura Keene's piano. He said a few things. Elmer would not lie about it; he was a very honest man. "We can't ask him now, he's dead." He was an extremely busy man at the time. In the early 1970s, Japanese pianos were becoming real competition for them. There were also problems with higher wages and safety laws increasing costs. Within ten years, they would close the factory. I asked him about Gerald Hutchinson. Paul does not know his name; he never worked for them in East Rochester. His grandson's message says he worked in New York City. Aeolian likely had storage facilities and certainly had dealerships in the city, so Gerald probably worked for them there. I never noticed such a repair on our Chickering, but I have not seen it since reading this claim. The only documentation that left the Aeolian factory with the piano is the display sing that is now in our museum next to it. I do not have a copy of that text, but will get it at some point. I want to add that each time this piano changed hands, it was donated. It seems unlikely that anyone would lie about this piano for any financial reasons.

The Lincoln's White House Chickering is another story. It is a grand piano and currently resides in the Chicago History Museum (formerly the Chicago Historical Society.)