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French Family Association Mara French, P.O. Box 1109, Sutter Creek, CA 95685-1109.
209-267-0649 Famous Frenches Jesse French Last updated by Mara French on 4/6/08. Send corrections or
additions to Mara French. |
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Jesse
French & Sons Piano Company was established in 1875 in Rochester, NY. The
company was once a division of the P.A. Starck Piano Company, and also shared
the name, Dorman French & Smith Pianos. It was also affiliated with Krell
French and H. A. Selmer. Piano names that are associated with Jesse French
& Sons include Ackerman & Lowe, Continental, Frenchetts, Jefferson,
Krell-French (1896-1905), Lagonda, and Browning. In 1941, H. A. Selmer, Inc. entered the piano market, purchasing the Jesse French
Company of New Castle, Indiana and built pianos from 1902 to 1952. The
division was closed in 1954 to concentrate on band instruments. Jesse French
and Sons were amongst the better makers of domestic pianos. In
1896 Albert Krell Jr. joined Jesse French to form the Krell-French Piano
Company at Springfield, Ohio, then moved to New Castle, Indiana and became
the Jesse French Company. In 1905 Albert Krell Jr. left Krell-French to begin
the Auto Grand Piano Company of America at Connersville, Indiana. Now
owned by J. Neal Irwin 6 Greenvale Dr. Rochester, N.Y. Established 1875. A
division of P.A. Starck Piano Co., 2160 N. Ashland, Chicago, IL. Other names
used in the past, Ackerman & Lowe, Continental, Frenchetts, Jefferson,
Krell-French, Lagonda, Browning. First pianos made in Nashville, TN, under
name of Dorman French & Smith, later New Castle Indiana, formerly a
division of H.A. Selmer, also affiliated with Krell French.
FRENCH,
JESSE Since
1875 the name Jesse French have stood for everything high grade in the music
line. Many thousands of pianos' bearing the name Jesse French have been marketed
in past years, but now these instruments bear the name of Jesse French &
Sons. They are manufactured by the Jesse French & Sons
Piano Co., New Castle. Ind. See this name for further particulars. JESSE
FRENCH & SONS This
artistic piano is the finest product of the great factory of the Jesse French
& Sons Piano Co. at New Castle. Ind. It is a strictly high
grade artistic instrument, notable not only for its fine musical
qualities but also for its remarkably beautiful case designs. These
instruments have attained to a place of distinction in the world of music.
Many great pianists and teachers having expressed for them their preference.
A number of leading music schools also have signified their approval of the
Jesse French & Sons' pianos by having them installed in their
institutions. The Jesse French & Sons' grand pianos appeal equally to the
artistic musicians and the owners of fine homes. One of the recent additions
to the list is a parlor grand, which affords a fine example of great tone in
small case, and it has won especial favor. This grand is also supplied with
reproducing player actions. The uprights may be had with electric expression
actions both with and without foot pedals. The name of French is one so Long
associated with pianos and music that it has literally become a household
word. Within the last year much skill and expense have been invested in new
scales, improved methods of construction and new designs. There has also been
introduced a novel feature, known as the Dulcet Tone, which opens a wide
field of possibilities In tone coloring and shading. The Dulcet Tone brings
into operation an especially arranged set of dampers and mutes in such manner
as to give sweet one string effects of peculiarly sympathetic quality. Mr.
Jesse French, the president of the company, started in the music business in
1872, branching out into the piano business in 1875, and has been
continuously connected with the industry ever since. Mr. French was the
founder of one and intimately associated with others of the best, known and
most successful factories and distributing companies in the United States. It
has always been the aim of the company to make the Jesse French & Sons
instruments the very best that they could produce, regardless of expense. The
Jesse French & Sons' piano is an artistic production, the culmination of
years of experience in the music trade. They are made in grands, uprights,
foot-power and electric players and reproducing pianos in great varieties of
size and styles, and in all of the fancy woods. Every part of the instrument,
with the exception of the hardware, is produced in the mammoth factory in New
Castle. Ind., erected especially for the purpose and equipped with the idea
of securing the best possible results in every department in any way
connected with the production of Jesse French & Sons pianos. For in them
the question of quality is paramount and the desire to excel a very potent
force, two expressive mottos being well known in this connection, viz.:
"Quality First and First Quality" and "A Name well-known Since
1875." In January 1955, the P. A. Starck Piano Co. of Chicago purchased the Jesse French & Sons trade position. In the modern Starck factory, master craftsmen utilize materials and equipment to produce Jesse French pianos of beauty and lasting musical quality for the intimacy of the American home; the exactitude of the studio and the hard usage of the school. The Jesse French models are exclusive designs based on present day trends in home furnishings. Jesse French pianos are scientifically balanced in every detail, and are nationally known as instruments of the highest quality. Many satisfied purchasers recommend Jesse French pianos to their friends. It is not unusual for the second and third generations of families topurchase a Jesse French piano. Each Jesse French piano is equipped with the new Ori-Coustic High Tension Scale. This scale has been acclaimed by experts as one of the finest piano scales available, regardless of price. Genealogy:
Jesse French m. Caroline ÒCallieÓ Lumsden in 1872. She was b. 22 May 1851 in
TN. She d. 10 Feb 1919 in New Castle, Henry Co., IN. Her father, John
Lumsden, had a large holding and was one of the founders of the Jesse French
Piano Company. 1895
St. Louis City Directory: John Lumsden was listed as Vice-President of
Jesse French Piano and Organ Company, 922 Olive, res. 4038 Westbelle Pl.
Jesse French, res. Nashville, TN, was listed as president, and Oscar Field,
res 3301 Morgan was secretary. The
Jesse French Piano and Organ Company was headquartered in St. Louis and
Nashville with stores throughout the South and Midwest, making it the largest
music retailer network outside of New York and the Northeast. To further his
own business, French involved himself indirectly with the publication of key Mississippi
Valley ragtime composers. Ragtime historians have long stressed the important
link between the sale of ragtime sheet music and the sale of pianos, both
reaching their peak during the ragtime era (c. 1897-1917). French
was also an important family and business member of the Starr and Gennett
piano and recording enterprise. The music industry dynasty of Jesse French
and his connection with Starr and Gennett begins with his father-in-law John
Lumsden. Lumsden was born in Southhampton, England in 1824, and moved to
America in 1842. He married in 1848 and thereafter had three daughters.
Callie married Jesse French in 1872, Maria married Oscar Addison Field in
1882, and Alice married Henry Gennett in 1875. The men these three daughters
married are the principal figures in the development of the French empire,
which came to include Starr and Gennett.
French
started his company in Nashville and was soon successful. In 1883, he entered
business in St. Louis with his brother-in-law, Oscar Addison Field, first as
Field, French, and Company, then as the Field-French Piano Company. Field was
born in New York State in 1847, entered the piano business in Nashville in
1875 (probably with French), married John Lumsden's daughter Maria in 1882,
and moved to St. Louis in 1883. Under the leadership of Field, French, and
Lumsden, the Field-French Piano Company was incorporated in 1887 as The Jesse
French Piano and Organ Company of St. Louis. Lumsden, who had been in
partnership with French and Field separately and collectively, also moved to
St. Louis in 1888. By
the time of its incorporation, The Jesse French Piano and Organ Company was a
gigantic retailer of pianos and organs. Based in Nashville, it had branches
in Memphis, Little Rock, St. Louis, Dallas, Birmingham, and Montgomery, with
a force of one hundred traveling salesmen. The company had grown large enough
that it decided to manufacture its own line of pianos. To this end, it turned
its interests to the Starr Piano Company of Richmond, Indiana. In
1872, James Starr (1824-1900) teamed up with Richard Jackson and George
Trayser to produce pianos in Richmond. Trayser had founded the first piano
factory west of the Allegheny Mountains in Indianapolis in 1849. In 1884, the
Richmond firm became James M. Starr and Company. Around the same time, the
company moved operations to a water-powered factory in the Whitewater River
Valley Gorge. In 1893, the controlling interest of the company went to Field,
French, and the stockholders of the Jesse French Piano and Organ Company.
Merger negotiations had begun in 1892 and were completed on April 7, 1893,
when the new Starr Piano Company was organized. The quality pianos produced
by this merger were nationally recognized the same year at the Chicago
Columbian Exposition, the event that helped introduce ragtime to the world.
The Starr Piano Company produced numerous lines of pianos under these names:
Starr, Jesse French, Cumberland, Duchess, Gennett, Minum, Trayser, Royal,
Pullman, Remington, Coronado, and Richmond pianos. John
Lumsden had involved himself with the Starr Company long before Jesse French
did, and it was probably he who brought Starr and French together. Upon Starr
Piano's incorporation in 1893, Lumsden's third son-in-law, Henry Gennett,
entered the picture. Henry married Lumsden's daughter Alice and moved with
his father-in-law to Richmond, Indiana. When the Starr and French companies
merged, Benjamin Starr became president with Gennett and Lumsden as secretary
and treasurer. By 1900, the factory was turning out 6,000 pianos per year. After
the death of Lumsden in 1898 and Starr in 1903, Gennett took over as
president of the Starr Piano Company with his three sons acting as officers.
They manufactured pianos in 52 styles and had sales rooms in twenty-four
cities. In 1902, Field and Gennett bought out their brother-in-law's stock in
the Jesse French Piano and Organ Company, including the Starr Piano Company.
Starr remained in business until 1952. It
can be fairly said that the French evolution succeeded while ragtime was
king. As noted at the outset, Jesse French knew that sheet music and piano
sales were interdependent; the former helped move the latter. Consequently,
he encouraged the production of piano rags because they were becoming wildly
popular with the younger generation. Ragtime was truly the rock and roll of
its day. Through the French connection, Starr and Gennett were strongly
linked to one of the most defining American popular music styles of all time.
That Gennett Records would also play to emerging markets may have been the
result of a Starr business strategy inherited from Jesse French.
Jesse
French was the uncle of O. K. Houck who was the founder of the O. K. Houck Piano Company! O. K. Houck
didnÕt just happen in the piano business. His uncle, Jesse French, was
a famous piano manufacturer with music stores in various sections of the
country. As a boy O. K. worked in one of these stores during vacations
and after school hours. Later he traveled through country districts
selling organs and pianos. When he was 21, O. K. and his father started
the piano business in Memphis . The road was
not easy but behind O. K.Õs ready smile and hearty handshake there was a lot
of old fashioned determination and stick-to-it-iveness. Some men would
have given up but O. K. had faith in himself and
faith in his business creed and finally success was won. In
the 1940s, Selmer entered the piano market, purchasing the Jesse French
Company of New Castle, Indiana. The division was closed in 1954 to
concentrate on band instruments.
Mara French bought her Krell-French piano in 1977 in Cupertino, CA, at ÒYe Olde Piano ShopÓ, and it first sold at A. J. Pommer on 9th & J St. in Sacramento, CA. They sold baby carriages in 1896, pianos by 1906, and Regina Hexaphones by 1909. She didnÕt realize until 2007 (30 years later) that the piano was made by Jesse French. |
