Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/508

 William Knabe, the founder of Knabe & Co., of Baltimore, whose portrait we give, was another important figure in the development of piano-making in America Born in Kreutzburg, Germany, in 1803, he came to this country twenty years later with a knowledge of piano-making; and, in association with Henry Gaehle, began manufacturing in Baltimore in 18139. A few years later he started in business for himself. Knabe was instrumental in bringing out many good "scales" and new ideas of similar unpatentable character, and is admitted to have left behind him a worthy record as a maker, being always identified with pianos of the first grade. He died in 1864 in Baltimore.

The late James A. Gray, of Boardman & Gray, of Albany, introduced several inventions of some moment into the square in past years, but with the decadence of that instrument their value ended.

William Lindeman, a native of Dresden, Saxony, and founder of Lindeman & Sons, introduced a "cycloid piano" in 1860, which won some notice from performers and experts. This instrument was a sort of compromise between the grand and square, but it was never a selling success, though a most meritorious and ingenious development.

Among other makers who identified themselves with the square during its popular period, may be named George Steck, John Jacob Decker, Andres Holmstrom, Myron A. Decker, Henry Hazelton, Napoleon J. Haines, and many others, living and dead, whose work in minor details can not be considered here.

The late Henry F. Miller, of Miller & Sons, Boston, and Albert Weber, founder of the eminent Weber firm, also deserve mention. The Miller and Weber firms played no insignificant part in improving the quality of American grands, and uprights as well. Henry F. Miller was a native of Providence, R. I., where he was born in 1825, He became an organist in early life, and