Thomas Appleton

Biography

Thomas Appleton was a Boston organ-builder who personally knew Benjamin Crehore and the circumstances of his career. Appleton wrote a sketch on the subject in 1871, which appeared posthumously alongside several other pieces on pianoforte history in the American Musician in 1887, though Spillane notes it added little of substance about Crehore specifically. Appleton also recalled visiting the shop of William and Adam Bent as early as 1803, when they were making pianos, describing their premises as on Winter Street near Washington. He further recorded that William Bent invented the first leather-splitting machine, obtained a patent on it, and moved to Philadelphia to run a leather business, while Adam Bent retired and became a South Boston land speculator. Thomas Appleton was an organ-building specialist who was taken into partnership by the Babcock Brothers in 1813, combining pipe-organ manufacturing with pianoforte-making. In 1815 the enterprise expanded into Hoyts, Babcock & Appleton after the Hoyts brothers, longtime importers of small musical goods and cheap European pianos, joined the firm; the business relocated to a large building on Milk Street, said to be the site of Franklin's birthplace. The commercial panic and business depression of 1819 forced the partners to separate, and Appleton returned to organ-building on his own account, opening a shop at the back of 19 Marlborough Street that same year. Spillane notes that many of his organs survived as examples of his professional skill. Thomas Appleton was an organ builder who constructed an organ, at a cost of four thousand dollars, for Boston's Handel and Haydn Society; the society's holdings in 1834 also included this organ, $9,000 in funds, and a Chickering & Mackay pianoforte.

Highlights

• An organ-builder who personally knew Benjamin Crehore and wrote a biographical sketch of him, published posthumously in the American Musician in 1887 (the statement itself written in 1871).
• Recalled visiting the Bent brothers' pianoforte shop in Boston as early as 1803 and recorded that William Bent invented and patented the first leather-splitting machine.
• Taken into partnership by the Babcock Brothers in 1813 as the organ-building specialist of the trio.
• After the 1819 dissolution of Hoyts, Babcock & Appleton, returned to organ-building on his own account.
• Many of his pipe organs survived as examples of his professional skill, per Spillane.
• Built a $4,000 organ owned by the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston.

Source

Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), pp. 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56, 94.

Public domain.