Hampton L. Story

Biography

Hampton L. Story, born at Cambridge, Vermont, on June 17, 1835, showed an early inborn talent for music and began his career working in a Burlington, Vermont music store for $50 a month plus board. Having saved capital while also working as a schoolteacher, he bought out his employer in 1859. In 1862 he partnered with a piano maker named Powers to manufacture the Story & Powers piano, said to be perhaps the first piano factory in Vermont. In 1867 he took the western agency for Estey organs, closed his Burlington business, and relocated to Chicago. In 1868 he took Isaac N. Camp as partner, forming Story & Camp, which became a leading wholesale and retail music house with stores in Chicago and St. Louis. Foreseeing that the west would eventually manufacture its own instruments, he left Story & Camp and in 1884 founded Story & Clark with Melville Clark and his own son, Edward H. Story, to make reed organs; the firm incorporated in 1888 as the Story & Clark Organ Company, with E. H. Story as president.

Highlights

• Regarded as foremost among the pioneers of the music trade in the west.
• Founded one of the first piano factories in Vermont (Story & Powers, 1862) and later co-founded Story & Clark with Melville Clark and his own son.
• Built a large wholesale/retail music trade empire across Chicago and St. Louis before moving into manufacturing.

Source

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. I (1911), p. 375.

Public domain.