Otto Wessell

Biography

Otto Wessell was born in Holstein, Germany, in 1845 and came to America with his parents in 1847. After graduating from New York public school he apprenticed as a cabinetmaker and later learned the piano trade, advancing to a position of trust at Steinway & Sons. In 1875 he started his own business, partnering with colleagues Nickel and Gross -- also Steinway action makers -- to found Wessell, Nickel & Gross. The firm succeeded from the start on the strength of their practical experience and maintained a leading reputation for quality. The author recalls Wessell in his early days personally carrying two upright actions to piano factories to save an expressman's fee and to check customer satisfaction. Described as a self-made man of few early opportunities who rose through force of character and integrity, Wessell saw his firm grow to employ over 500 hands, supplying the foremost high-class piano makers in America. He died on May 25, 1899, at age 54. The business continued under his partner Adam Nickel, with Henry Nickel, Jr. and the founder's sons Arthur and Fernando Wessell as junior partners. Otto Wessell was one of the founders of the New York piano action firm Wessell, Nickel and Gross. He directed the training of his sons, Arthur and Fernando Wessell, toward careers in the business -- Fernando specifically toward becoming a piano action maker. He had died by the time Arthur left the practice of law to join the firm's management. From Spillane (1890): Otto Wessell was one of the three founders, with Adam Nickel and Rudolph Gross, of the action-manufacturing house of Wessell, Nickel & Gross, established in 1874. He entered the shop of Herter in New York at age seventeen and served an apprenticeship there, becoming an expert and finished workman. He was afterward employed at Steinway & Sons' factory, where he assisted at the finest work then known in New York and gained valuable practical experience in how actions were fitted to pianos. In the new firm's modest first year, Wessell would go around to the trade selling any actions made that week, then return to the bench to make more. As the firm's actions became known and orders increased, the partners expanded and devoted more time to invention, patenting several action improvements. Spillane singles out Wessell, together with his partners, as deserving special distinction in the history of the American piano trade, describing all three as self-made, liberal, upright men.

Highlights

• Born in Holstein, Germany in 1845; came to America in 1847.
• Founded the action-making firm Wessell, Nickel & Gross in 1875 with former Steinway colleagues Nickel and Gross, growing it to over 500 employees.
• Described as a self-made man of unimpeachable integrity; died May 25, 1899, at age 54.
• One of the founders of Wessell, Nickel and Gross
• Directed his sons Arthur and Fernando Wessell's training toward the piano action business
• Entered the shop of Herter in New York at seventeen years of age and served an apprenticeship there, becoming an expert finished workman
• Later employed in Steinway & Sons' factory, where he assisted on the finest work then known and studied how actions were applied to the piano
• Co-founded the action-manufacturing firm Wessell, Nickel & Gross in 1874, and in the firm's first year personally sold actions to the trade before returning to the bench

Sources

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. I (1911), pp. 379, 380; Vol. II (1913), pp. 224, 225.

Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), pp. 323, 324, 325, 326.

Public domain.