Cornelius Bogart
piano maker
inventor
Biography
Cornelius Bogart was a piano-maker in Charleston, South Carolina, active at a time when pianos were being made there before 1840. In 1851 he took out a patent for an improvement in sounding-boards, an idea that to some extent anticipated the later sounding-board arrangement patented by Driggs. Bogart's sounding-boards were built of several kinds of wood, glued and fitted closely in the manner of a mandolin, cut to set naturally in that formation. Like many similar inventions of the period, however, his 'improvement' amounted practically to nothing in real terms.
Highlights
- A Charleston maker who patented a sounding-board improvement in 1851, anticipating Driggs' later sounding-board arrangement
- Built sounding-boards from several kinds of wood glued and fitted like a mandolin, though the invention proved of little practical value
Source
Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), p. 136.
Public domain.