John A. Weser

Biography

John A. Weser was born in 1853 on a farm in Ulster County, New York, to parents who had immigrated from Germany. The oldest of eight children, he showed early mechanical aptitude, improvising a tuning hammer from a bolt as a boy after watching a professional piano tuner work on the family's instrument. Determined to become a piano maker rather than a farmer, he was apprenticed in a New York piano factory in 1872. In 1879 he started his own business as Weser Brothers, eventually bringing five brothers into the firm as piano makers. Starting from an output of two pianos a week, he grew the company into one of the largest piano factories in New York, producing roughly 5,000 pianos annually. An early believer in the potential of the player piano, Weser Brothers produced its first upright player piano in 1897, and John A. Weser went on to secure thirty-four patents for player-mechanism inventions and improvements, including notable expression-control devices patented in 1907. His brothers Winfield S. Weser and George W. Weser assisted him in managing the firm.

Highlights

• Founded the piano manufacturing firm Weser Brothers in New York in 1879, building it from an output of two pianos a week into one of the largest piano factories in New York, producing about 5,000 pianos a year
• Obtained thirty-four patents for player-piano mechanisms, including a basic May 28, 1907 supplemental expression device and a June 1, 1907 patent combining motor-operated and foot-power bellows control
• Was among the first manufacturers to offer a piano playable manually, by electric motor, or by foot power, at the performer's choice

Source

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. II (1913), pp. 196, 197, 199.

Public domain.