Willard Naremore Van Matre
born 1851
Biography
Willard Naremore Van Matre was born on a farm in northern Illinois in 1851, a descendant of the Van Meteren family who had settled in New Utrecht, Long Island, in 1663. Graduating from Munroe, Wisconsin high school in 1869, he began his career selling fruit trees and sewing machines, then organs for the Chicago Cottage Organ Company, becoming a stockholder there in 1885 in charge of selling. In 1895 he joined the Smith and Barnes Piano Company handling correspondence and selling as secretary. An expert salesman wanting to build a piano embodying his own ideas of construction and tone, he bought the controlling interest in the Schumann Piano Company in 1900, developing novel construction ideas with his experts. Described as an idealist and enthusiast who could not be tempted to build anything but the very best piano, he achieved adequate success.
Highlights
- Traced his ancestry to the Van Meterens of sixteenth-century Antwerp and to a friend of George Washington
- Bought controlling interest in the Schumann Piano Company in 1900
- Built the Schumann piano to embody his own ideas of construction and tone quality
Source
Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. II (1913), pp. 167, 168.
Public domain.