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Timothy Gilbert (1797—July 19, 1865) was an American piano manufacturer, abolitionist and religious organizer in Boston, Massachusetts.

Contents 1 Pianos 1.1 Currier & Gilbert 1.2 T. Gilbert, T. Gilbert & Co. 1.2.1 402 and 406 Washington street 1.2.2 400 Washington street 1.2.3 484 Washington street 2 Religion 2.1 The Free Baptist Church 2.1.1 The Tremont Temple 2.2 American Baptist Anti-Slavery Convention 3 References

Gilbert was born in Enfield, Massachusetts, and worked on his father's farm until the age of 21. He arrived in Boston December 1818, where he apprenticed with cabinet maker Levi Ruggles, and later worked for piano maker John Osborn before becoming a piano maker in his own right. He was an active member of the Baptist Church, to which he converted in 1817, and an outspoken abolitionist. He maintained his home as a station of the Underground Railroad, and on the passage of the Fugitive slave laws Gilbert announced in the papers that his door would remain open to runaway slaves. He was a member and director in a secular charitable organizations^[1] and served as president of the Boylston Bank from 1855 to 1860.

Gilbert married Mary Wetherbee in 1823 (Ashburnham, Mass., July 7, 1796—December 1843), and their only child, Mary Eunice, was born June 8, 1827. Following Mary's death, Gilbert married Alice Davis November 28, 1844, and in 1846 they adopted Alice (b.April 23, 1846). Their second daughter, Martha Fear Gilbert, was born April 27, 1847.

Gilbert died July 19, 1865 at his home in Boston. His funeral was held at the Tremont Temple at the expense of the Evangelical Baptist Benevolent and Missionary Society, both of which he had been instrumental in forming. He is buried at Mount Auburn cemetery.

[edit] Pianos

[edit] Currier & Gilbert

Gilbert entered a partnership with piano maker Ebenezer Currier (1801-1835)^[2] by 1826,^[3] and they were listed at 393 Washington street by 1829,^[4] but dissolved that spring. Currier, with new partner Philip Brown, opened a showroom on the first floor, where they offered "all kinds of Upright & Horizontal Piano Fortes...embracing the latest improvements,"^[5] and in 1831 he patented a square piano with hammers above the strings.^[6]

[edit] T. Gilbert, T. Gilbert & Co.

[edit] 402 and 406 Washington street

Gilbert established his own factory in Osborn's former workshops at 402 Washington street,^[7] and admitted Henry Safford as a partner by 1837, changing the firm to Timothy Gilbert & Company.^[8] In 1837 T. Gilbert & Co. were awarded a silver medal for one of the pianos they showed at the Exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, placed after fellow Boston manufacturers Chickering & Co., Wilkins & Newhall, and Hallet & Allen for their tone and slightly heavy touch,^[9] but were removed from competition at the following exhibition for advertising "the fact, that they have not, to their knowledge, a personal friend among the selected judges."^[10] They received a diploma for third best square piano at the 1841 exhibition.^[11]

In 1841 Gilbert patented improvements in uprights in which he claimed a spring attached to the hammer butt for the combined purposes of returning the hammer to its resting position, reseating the damper against the strings, and keeping the hammer in communication with the key, and he also included a screw adjustment for jack position and damper timing, and a secondary notch on the hammer butt to facilitate shakes and trills.^[12] The same year, Gilbert was assigned tuner Edwin Fobes' patent for manufacturing hammers with a layer of soft leather covering a block of cork glued to the top portion of the hammer molding,^[13] and he later purchased the Massachusetts license to manufacture pianos with the Aeolian attachment patented by the independent mechanic Obed Coleman in 1844,^[14] which fitted a simple reed organ onto the bottom plank of an ordinary square piano, arranged to be played by the ordinary piano keys.^[15]

William H. Jameson joined the company as a partner about 1843, and became Gilbert's son in law, marrying Gilbert's daughter Mary Eunice.

[edit] 400 Washington street

In 1847 Gilbert & Co. erected a new factory at 400 Washington street.^[16] The same year Gilbert patented a cast iron frame for grand pianos with the ordinary resisting bars combined with bars perpendicular to the strings—one of which was to be connected with the front edge of the sounding board—in order to prevent the case sides from twisting,^[17] as well as a double action for horizontal pianos with springs meant to support the weight of the hammers and dampers in order to lighten the touch of the keys.^[18]

In 1850 Gilbert listed $80,000 capital, with 80 workers and sales worth $112,500—the second largest piano manufacturer in Boston after Chickering and Sons,^[19] having made more than 4,400 pianos to date. Gilbert's personal fortune was estimated as $100,000.^[20]

In 1851 Gilbert patented actions for horizontal and vertical pianos where escapement was operated by a lower extension of the hammer butt instead of by a fixed button in order to reduce the number of parts to allow a lighter touch, and with an additional projection to limit the motion of the jack to improve repetition.^[21] They granted their New York and general agencies to Horace Waters the same year, and Waters advertised their iron frame squares with the circular scale as well as upright grands and boudoir pianos.^[22] Gilbert & Co. received honorable mention for a square piano with the Aeolian attachment at the 1851 London Exhibition,^[23] a silver medal for the second best piano at the 1851 American Institute fair,^[24] and a bronze medal for the third best square at the 1853 Exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association.^[25]

[edit] 484 Washington street

By 1853 their address changed to 484 Washington.^[26] Brayley, writing in 1915, described that the warerooms were connected by bridges with the factory across the yard, and an underground passage connected the machine shop with the boiler room, "which was said to be a refuge for runaway slaves".^[27]

In 1856 they advertised they had made upwards of 6,000 pianos, as many as 2,300 with the Aeolian attachment.^[28] They were awarded a bronze medal for the third best grand action piano at the American Institute Fair, after Chickering & Sons and Steinway & Sons,^[29] and a silver medal for a grand piano at the Exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association,^[30] which they received again in 1860, where their grand piano was judged to be "an instrument of great excellence, and equalled by few."^[31]

By 1865 the company was listed at 20 Beach street.

[edit] Religion

[edit] The Free Baptist Church

Gilbert was originally a member of the Charles Street Baptist church, but left it for the Federal Street church which was more aligned with his views on slavery—Fulton wrote it had been said Gilbert first tested his new congregation by "fill[ing] his pew with colored people [and that] no one objected",^[32] but more recent accounts agree he was expelled from the Charles street church for this reason^[33]—and left the Federal Street church April 1839 to join the Free Baptist church whose first services were held April 21, 1839 at Baldwin Place, with 82 attending and a sermon preached by Nathaniel Colver, with whom Gilbert had corresponded since Colver's lecturing tour the year before and who would be engaged as pastor of the Free Church that fall.^[34]

The non-segregated, anti-slavery, temperance, and anti-secret society Free Church first met in a room on Tremont Row, then at Congress Hall, and at the Museum Building at the corner of Bromfield and Tremont Streets,^[35] and by 1841 had 325 members^[36]

[edit] The Tremont Temple

In 1843, Gilbert, S. W. Shipley, Thomas Gould and William S. Damrell raised $55,000 to purchase the failed Tremont Theater on School Street in order to establish a permanent and self-sufficient location. The building was remodelled at the additional cost of $22,000, during which time Gilbert left the management of his business with Jameson, and the Tremont Temple was dedicated December 1843—the free-seat church was supported by renting out the storefronts, offices and 2,000 seat hall.^[37] The Tremont Temple burned on March 31, 1852, destroying a neighboring building. Initial estimates of the damage were about $200,000, besides the building insured at $42,000 which included A. J. Shepard's piano and music store, valued at $8,000, and Thomas Thompson's collection of paintings valued $45,000.^[38]

A new building designed by William Washburn was erected in its place, with a 124 feet by 72 feet main hall capable of seating 2,500, and smaller 1000 seat and 300 seat halls. It was intitially estimated at $100,000 fully furnished^[39] but cost nearly $125,000, and meant to be offset by renting out 4 stores and a number of offices and studios, as well as the entire second story which was occupied by the Young Men's Christian Association. Th trustees transferred the deed to the newly incorporated Evangelical Baptist Benevolent and Missionary Society in 1858.^[40] The second Tremont Temple burned August 14, 1879, the loss estimated $200,000, insured for $100,000 ^[41]

[edit] American Baptist Anti-Slavery Convention

Gilbert joined the American Baptist Anti-Slavery Convention, formed at the Tremont Chapel in 1840,^[42] which published a series of inflammatory letters denouncing slave-holding as an ungraduated sin which precipitated a rift in the theoretically neutral Triennial Convention.^[43] The abolitionists were excluded from the ballots at the 1841 convention, and lost an influential position on the Board of Foreign Missions, and in response the Anti-Slavery Convention formed their own provisional foreign committee in 1842. Gilbert was elected treasurer and was charged with collecting funds that otherwise would be donated to the American Board of Foreign Missions—he explained later "the majority of the abolitionists have not so much objection to receive the money of slaveholders, as to be associated with them in evangelizing the world, and thus, by the copartnership, acknowledge them to be Christians in good standing in the Baptist church."^[44]

Gilbert sent funds to missionaries, including Adoniram Judson and Jonathan Wade, providing they affirmed they were abolitionists, and even proposed establishing missions entirely independent of the Board of Foreign Missions, but refrained from joining the American and Foreign Missionary Society (later called the American Baptist Free Mission Society)^[45] which attracted many of his colleagues, stating "When I shall become convinced, that there is no good reason to hope that the old missionary organization will purge itself from the charge of receiving money in such a way as to enter into a copartnership with slaveholders, and giving its sanction to that wicked institution, then I shall be prepared to abandon them, not provisionally, but forever."^[46] In 1845 the Anti-Slavery Convention as well as the provisional committee were dissolved, after the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention and dissolution of the Triennial Convention,^[47] and Gilbert joined the mainstream Missionary Union.

[edit] References

• Justin D. Fulton Memoir of Timothy Gilbert. Lee & Shepard, Boston. 1866
• obituary Annals of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, 1795—1892. Rockwell & Churchill, Boston. 1892