Horace Waters

Biography

Horace Waters was a deeply religious music teacher with a strong Yankee business instinct who took up selling pianos fitted with an Aeolian Attachment (invented by Lemuel Gilbert of Boston) as a way to promote sales of the hymns he published. In 1845 he exhibited one at the Castle Garden fair in New York; jealous competitors tried to drown out his playing by sounding all their pianos at once, but Waters silenced them by appealing to the fairness of the ladies in the audience. He stayed in New York, opened a store on Broadway, and hired the Tremaine Brothers to demonstrate the Aeolian piano and his hymns in churches and Sunday schools. A sincere, almost fanatical prohibitionist who often lapsed into temperance preaching while selling pianos, he nonetheless became a leading piano merchant and is said to have been first to sell pianos on installment. His firm was incorporated in 1886 with Waters as president; he died in 1893. From Spillane (1890): Horace Waters had been before the musical public for over forty years in connection with music publishing and the retail pianoforte business. At the time of writing he was the principal of Horace Waters & Company, which had manufactured pianofortes since 1880, though the firm's wholesale department suffered from a lack of enterprise in advertising and progressive business methods. The firm nonetheless controlled a large retail business in New York. Beyond the piano and music trade, Waters was noted as an old-time figure in the music trade who also enjoyed a wide reputation as a temperance advocate and political reformer. His sons, T. Leeds Waters and Horace Waters, Jr., were both associated with the family business. Horace Waters was a New York agent who took over T. Gilbert & Company's direct sales agency, originally run by Berry & Waters at 339 Broadway from 1848, and held the agency for a number of years afterward.

Highlights

• Sold pianos with an Aeolian Attachment invented by Lemuel Gilbert to promote sales of his own published hymns
• Famously defended his 1845 Castle Garden fair exhibit after jealous competitors tried to drown out his playing
• Said to have been the first to sell pianos on the installment plan
• Took over T. Gilbert & Company's New York sales agency, originally run by Berry & Waters at 339 Broadway from 1848, and held it for a number of years.
• Before the musical public for over forty years in music publishing and the retail pianoforte trade
• Principal of Horace Waters & Company, manufacturing pianofortes since 1880
• Enjoyed a wide reputation as a temperance advocate and political reformer

Sources

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. II (1913), pp. 193, 194.

Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), pp. 91, 300.

Public domain.