Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/498

 some of whose family were prominently known on the early American stage, was the inventor and patentee 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 instrument



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 illustrated in Fig. 6.

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 Philadelphia 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