Horace Edgar French

Biography

Horace Edgar French, son of Jesse French, Sr., left Warden's College in Nashville to work in his father's music stores in Nashville and St. Louis. After a period learning piano construction at the Starr piano factory, he spent about a year as a traveling piano salesman before returning to manage the Nashville store and serve as secretary of the Jesse French Piano and Organ Company until 1903, when he became treasurer of the Krell-French Piano Company. When that firm became the Jesse French and Sons Piano Company, he was made vice-president and president of its Springfield, Illinois affiliate, French and Sons Piano Company. He was an active member of the Commercial Club of New Castle, Indiana, credited in part with that city's growth after the family's piano factory located there. He is described as genial, fair, and thoroughly familiar with piano construction.

Highlights

• Trained in piano construction at the Starr piano factory before entering the family business as a traveling salesman
• Became treasurer of the Krell-French Piano Company (1903), then vice-president of the Jesse French and Sons Piano Company and president of the French and Sons Piano Company of Springfield, Ill.
• An active member of the Commercial Club of New Castle, Ind., a city whose population grew from 3,000 to 12,000 after the French piano factory was established there

Source

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. II (1913), pp. 92, 93.

Public domain.