H. W. Gray

Biography

Colonel H. W. Gray was a native of Pennsylvania, born at Ephrata, Lancaster County, on June 3, 1830. He had previous experience in the earlier firm of Bosert & Schomacker before Schomacker & Company was organized in 1864 into a stock company with large capital, at which point he became an officer of the reorganized business; he subsequently served as its president for many years. In 1876 Gray patented a method of electro-plating piano strings in gold, a process the firm regarded as its greatest specialty, having created comment in the trade for over thirteen years by the time of Spillane's writing. Spillane notes that coating strings with metallic alloys was not itself original to Gray, having been anticipated by H. J. Newton of New York in 1851, while Martin Miller held a related 1862 patent for electro-plating wire. Gray served as president of the Schomacker Piano Company of Philadelphia. Spillane credits him with developing a string-plating process that, unlike several earlier proposals for coated or wrapped piano strings, was actually put into practical use rather than remaining a theoretical patent. Gray acknowledged that coating strings had been attempted by others before him, but maintained that wrapping them was his own innovation.

Highlights

• Native of Ephrata, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, born June 3, 1830
• Had prior experience in the earlier Bosert & Schomacker firm before becoming an officer, and later long-serving president, of the Schomacker Piano Company after it was organized as a stock company in 1864
• Patented (1876) a process for electro-plating piano strings in gold, regarded by the firm as its greatest specialty for over thirteen years
• President of the Schomacker Piano Company
• Developed a string-plating process, distinct from earlier theoretical patents, that was actually put into practical use

Source

Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), pp. 192, 193.

Public domain.