Henry Ward Poole

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Henry Ward Poole (1825-1890)

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[edit] Biography

Poole was born 13 September, 1825 in Salem, Massachusetts (renamed Peabody 1868). He attended Leicester Academy and Yale University 1841-1842[1].

He worked up to 1850 at Newburyport, Massachusetts with organ maker Joseph Alley[2] and minister Henry James Hudson (b.1821-) developing a euharmonic (enharmonic) organ which they patented and solicited by mail, and which was awarded a gold medal at the 1850 Exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association.[3] It was installed at Indiana Place Chapel,[4] Boston, Massachusetts and remained in use for fifteen years. Poole patented a special keyboard to be used with his extended tuning system in 1868.

Poole assisted August A. Dalson under Pennsylvania state geologist Henry D. Rogers in the state survey organized by Geological Society of Pennsylvania 1851-1852, based in Pottsville, and remained afterwards working as an engineer, surveyor and commercial property agent. In 1856 he was engaged by the Mexican Pacific Coal and Iron Mines and Land Company (of New York City) surveying railway prospects between Veracruz and Mexico City, and then led an expedition through Guernero exploring for iron and coal prospects, publishing his topographical survey with four maps in New York, 1858. He returned to Mexico in 1859 to teach modern languages at College of Mines, Mexico City,[5] and acted as agent for the American Antiquarian Society (where he had continued his own studies after Yale) collecting Mexican artifacts and literature.

He was son of Ward Poole (1799-1864) and Elizabeth Wilder (1801-1864), brother of famous librarian William Frederick Poole, and cousin of celebrated humorist (journalist, politician) Fitch Poole. He died 22 October, 1890 and is buried at Mexico City National Cemetery.

  1. ↑  His brother William Frederick left Yale the same year due finances.
  2. ↑  Alley worked at Brown's wharf, and included mention of the euharmonic organ in Newburyport directories around 1860. He was originally from Maine, ("Organ-Building in New England" (1834) The New England Magazine, Vol. 6, March)
  3. ↑  Poole served on the Committee of Judges on musical instruments at the exhibition but didn't contribute to the recommendation of this prize. The Sixth Exhibition of the Mass. Charitable Mechanics Association, (1850) Boston. p.134
  4. ↑  Church of Disciples; James Freeman Clarke preached at this chapel (The stranger's new guide through Boston (1869) A. Williams & Co., Boston)
  5. ↑  The College of Mines was founded 1792 by Fausto Eluyar y Suvisa.

[edit] Musical inventions

United States patent 73,753. H. W. Poole. Key-board for Organs &c. 28.01.1868; Fig.2 Perspective view showing the relative position of all the Keys
United States patent 73,753. H. W. Poole. Key-board for Organs &c. 28.01.1868; Fig.2 Perspective view showing the relative position of all the Keys

Poole appreciated "all musical ratios derived from the primes 3, 5, and 7" (and more tentatively, 11 - he also asserted a melodic beauty in microtonal, commatic shifts). He described a 7-limit double diatonic just scale to distinguish it from the usual diatonic scale, or (triple diatonic as he called it) with common tones from tonic, dominant and subdominant major triads. The new scale replaced subdominant pitches with the "perfect seventh and ninth of the dominant harmony" to correspond better with what he heard harmonically and melodically in all kinds of music. Poole proposed using five parallel chains of fifths from 1/1, 5/4, 25/16, 7/4 and 35/16, which he distinguished by type and case. One octave needed 100 different pitches to play in 19 different keys.

triple diatonic
  (9/8) (10/9) (16/15) (9/8) (10/9) (9/8) (16/15)
C      D      e       F     G      a     b       C
C      D      e      (F7)   G      A     b       C
  (9/8) (10/9) (21/20) (8/7) (9/8)  (10/9) (16/15)
double diatonic

The 1849 organ was described being capable of playing eleven musical (major) keys from the ordinary keyboard in pure intonation by furnishing multiple pipes for each physical key (see other instruments using similar means microtonal pianos). The inventors described great benefits due the tuning - they even claim it stayed in tune better - and argued how these balanced its greater size (up to 8 feet wider) and reduction in loudness compared with instruments of similar cost (ie. number of pipes, they estimated one having "two Diapasons, the Trumpet, the Oboe, the Dulciana, the Flute and the Clarabella, in perfect tune" to cost between $4000 and $5000, and one third more if a Great Organ was desired). Foot pedals operated intermediate levers inserted into the tracker works used selecting between pairs of pallet valves for each note.

On the suggestion of Thomas Perronet Thompson Poole developed a special keyboard (to compel a "musician to know what he is doing", although A. U. Hayter, the King's Chapel organist, had complained about the care required by the existing plan) that organized pitches similar to an ordinary piano keyboard but also emphasized the different classes of pitches by their shape and color. The 1/1 series was assigned to large white natural keys arranged rising in diagonal rows, the 5/4 series on raised black sharp keys between the white keys, the 7/4 series on square red keys followed by square yellow 63/32 and blue 45/32 keys behind the white keys (a 6/5 series could be added using buttons raised above the sharp keys if desired). Key motion was linear and used two guide pins. The staggered keyboard arrangement separated distant key signatures and aligned octaves and was transpositionally invariant but not generalized, although the abbreviated pedalboard implied 3, 5, and 7 axes for 14 key-notes using three ranks of identical key levers.

Poole outlined methods to increase the versatility of similarly arranged instruments, including a 78-tone microtemperament, and a 106-tone multiple system (2 cycles of 53 equal temperament).

[edit] Publications

[edit] Patents

  • US 6,565 Alley & Poole. Organ action. 03.07.1849
  • US 73,753. H. W. Poole. Improved Enharmonic key-board for Organs, &c. 28.01.1868

[edit] Related Collections

  • Henry Ward Poole collection of Mexican Documents, 1610-1857. Record Nr. b3414909. New York Public Library, Humanities - Manuscripts and Archives.
  • Mexican Pamphlets. 233f.101-140, and 274b.18. Bodleian Library, London.
  • Correspondence, 1857. misc. mss. American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mss. Dept.
  • Correspondence from Henry W. Poole, 18 October, 1856. J. Peter Lesley Papers, 1826-1898. B L56. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia
  • Tripod cylinder (pottery vessel ad.200-500) 79.55. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Everett Fund.
  • Henry James Hudson Collection. SC1998.39 M2A 6,4. Sibley Library, Eastman School of Music. Rochester, NY

[edit] References

  • Hayes, Isaac. (1867) The Open Polar Sea: A Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery Towards the North Pole. Hurd and Houghton, New York
  • "Quality of Musical Sounds". (1868) Scientific American, July 8. p25
  • Eliot, Samuel A. (1850) "The Euharmonic Organ". The Living Age, September 7. p473-479 ("This article was written for the Living Age, by the Hon. Samuel A. Eliot, our new member of Congress. He has gone to Washington, a place where he will not probably find perfect harmony.")
  • Bosanquet, R. H. M. (1874) "On the Theory of the Division of the Octave". Journal of the Royal Musical Association
  • Lesley, J. P. (1876) Historical Sketch of Geological Explorations in Pennsylvania and Other States Board of Commissioners for the Second Geological Survey, Harrisburg
  • Howe, Granville L. and W. S. B. Mathews (1889) A Hundred Years of Music in America. W. B. Conkey, Chicago.
  • "One of the Lost Geniuses: Contributors Club". (1891) The Atlantic Monthly, January. p136
  • Owen, B. (1987) "An enharmonic harmonium by Joseph Alley". Reed Organ Society Journal, Fall. p23
  • Stanton, William. "Pennsylvania Geological Survey: 1836"; American Scientific Exploration, 1803-1860. (1991) American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.
  • Monzo, Joseph. (1999) "On the Poole Keyboard". Sonic Arts Gallery, San Diego
  • "Joseph Alley - Organ, The First Religious Society, Newburyport, MA, 1834". "Pipe Organs of the Merrimack Valley". The Northeast Organist Magazine

[edit] See also

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