A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Chickering

CHICKERING. Messrs. Chickering and Sons, pianoforte-makers of Boston and New York, U.S. They claim to be the earliest existing American house, and the first to have obtained any prominence. According to information supplied by Messrs. Chickering, the first pianoforte made in America was upon an English model, probably one of Broadwood's. It was made by Benjamin Crehorne, of Milton, U.S., before the year 1803. From that year the construction of American pianofortes was persistently carried on, but without any material development until a Scotchman named James Stewart, afterwards known in London through his connection with Messrs. Collard and Collard, gave an impetus to the American home-manufacture. Stewart induced Jonas Chickering to join him, but two years after, Stewart returned to Europe, when Chickering was left upon his own account. The year given as that of the actual establishment of the Chickering firm is 1823. Two years subsequent to this, Alpheus Babcock, who had served his time with Crehorne, contrived an iron frame for a square pianoforte, with the intention to compensate for changes of temperature affecting the strings, for which he took out a patent. Whether this was suggested by an improvement with the same object patented in London in 1820 by James Thorn and William Allen, or was an independent idea is not known, but Babcock's plan met with no immediate success. However, this attempt at compensation laid the foundation of the modern equipoise to the tension in America as Allen's did in England. Jonas Chickering produced a square pianoforte with an iron frame complete, except the wrest-pin block, in 1837. From 1840 this principle was fostered by Messrs. Chickering, and applied to grand pianofortes as well as square, and has since been adopted, by other makers in America and Europe. For further particulars of the American construction, see Pianoforte and Steinway.

[ A. J. H. ]