John Davenport

Biography

John Davenport, of the piano-plate foundry firm of Davenport & Treacy, was born in Stamford, Connecticut, in August 1840, of Revolutionary stock. Carefully educated, he graduated with high honors from Yale College, then at nineteen entered his father's business, the Still Water Iron Works in Stamford, remaining involved until 1880. In 1863 he also partnered with a Mr. Betts to form Davenport & Betts, manufacturing light machinery and tools for boring oil wells. He retired from active business in 1866, spending two years building his home on the shores of Long Island Sound, before purchasing the Brown Scale Works and Foundry in New York in 1868. He abandoned scale manufacture in 1872, moving the foundry to Jersey City for a general jobbing and foundry business. In 1873 he first met Daniel F. Treacy, then superintendent of his foundry works; the two became lasting friends and, when Treacy was made an equal partner, formed Davenport & Treacy, which by 1890 was the largest producer of refined piano plates in the world, having grown from 275 plates cast in 1884 to 16,000 in 1889. In 1887 the firm built a large new foundry in Stamford, Connecticut.

Highlights

• Co-founder of Davenport & Treacy, described as the world's largest producer of refined piano plates by 1890
• Grew the firm's output from 275 plates in 1884 to 16,000 in 1889
• Yale graduate who ran a machine works, a scale works, and a foundry before entering the piano-plate trade

Source

Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), pp. 332, 333, 334, 335, 336.

Public domain.