# General Mandolin Topics > Vintage Instruments >  Who was the first American mandolin manufacturer?

## pfox14

I am curious if anyone knows the answer to this question. Most sources seem to indicate that the mandolin was introduced to America by Italian immigrants around the 1870s-80s. The earliest ads I could find date from 1894 for Lyon & Healey/Washburn, A.C. Fairbanks, Biehl & W.A. Cole. Was it L&H? Or somebody else?

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chuck3, 

DavidKOS, 

hank, 

Mando-Mauler

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## Jim Garber

I have a C. Bruno catalog from 1888. I believe that they contracted with mostly New York makers like Mannello and Ricca and others. I hv posted the mandolin page but can do so again when I get to my computer. I will check my other catalogs. My Ricca catalog is undated as well as the Mayflower one I have online.
Very interesting question, Paul. I'll be back.

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DavidKOS, 

Denny Gies

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## Bob Bass

Whatever you guys find in terms of "manufacturing" will have been a true commercial enterprise. However, Italian immigrants w/musical backgrounds were prominent in musical endeavors here at least as early as 1801 in the Northeast and Central Atlantic coast. Take a look at the history portion of Italian American Immigrants entry at Wikipedia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_American.

Given the rough outline there, I would not be surprised if Italian luthiers, maybe from Southern Italy, were here making instruments(probably violins, maybe mandolins) on a small scale before the Revolutionary War. The problem, of course, is finding records of it. That's a big research undertaking which I'm not able to undertake- but someone may already know- unsure who that might be.

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DavidKOS

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## Jim Garber

Ok. Here are a couple of old mandolin pages. First my 1888 one. Note that there is one #32 listedas American -- it is also a flatback. 

Then a ca. 1890 Bruno that I found on archive.org. I might guess tho that many of these were imports but there us a section called American mandolines. Of course, we haven't much of clue as to who made them.

Then a page from FH Newell 1886 in Boston with another mandolin pictured similar to the Bruno ones.

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chuck3, 

DavidKOS, 

Denny Gies, 

hank, 

Randolph, 

Verne Andru

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## journeybear

Interesting to see the change in spelling. Each of Jim's examples, dating from 1890 to a few years earlier, spell it "mandoline," while each of Paul's examples, dating from 1894, spell it "mandolin." I wonder how that came to be, and if this is indicative of an industry-wide change.

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## pfox14

Good stuff Jim. Thanks for posting those awesome catalog pages. I think it will be pretty difficult to determine if these early American companies actually built the mandolins or were importing them from Europe. I know for sure that Lyon & Healy manufactured their own instruments, but not sure about any others.

Here's another ad I found from 1891 for Stratton mandolins, a brand I've never heard of.

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hank

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## pfox14

Did some more digging on Lyon & Healy. The earliest American patent for a mandolin design I could find is Pat. # 368,461 from 1887 by George Durkee who was Lyon & Healy's Chief Engineer. The patent is essentially a standard bowl-back mandolin. Also got pages of L&H's 1889 catalog showing their bowl-back mandolins. Apparently, L&H was importing fretted instruments prior to 1885, but were disappointed with the quality, so they built their own manufacturing plant in Chicago. If anyone finds anything earlier, let me know.

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DavidKOS, 

hank

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## Jim Hilburn

I don't know but would have guessed Martin would be in the running.

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## Jim Hilburn

Should have searched before posting. I see they didn't start making mandolins till near the turn of the century.

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## Graham McDonald

Joseph Bohmann 'claimed' to have made the first mandolin in the US. I am at work and away from my notes, but it may have been on one of his printed catalogues (1895) that he claimed to have made a mandolin for the Spanish Students. This is a bit odd as the original Spanish Students played bandurrias, but there was a group of Italian mandolin players who appeared quite soon after, led by Carlo Curti and they may have been the people for whom Bohmann made that mandolin. There is some information about this in a chapter on early mandolins in the US which can be downloaded off my website here. This one of a couple of chapters of the forthcoming book on mandolin history which, with luck, will be published later this year and can be downloaded as a teaser  :Smile:   I have also made my first forays onto facebook with a page about the book. There are a few interesting photos of mandolins there as well. New friends are welcome !

Cheers

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Bob Bass, 

DavidKOS, 

hank, 

Larry Ayers, 

Scot63, 

StuartE

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## LongBlackVeil

quick search says Martin got into mandolin in "the late 1890s" probably not the first but not too far off

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## barney 59

Could "American" also include Central or South America?  Could "mandolin" be any of those early instruments that were kind of mandolins but not exactly as we mean it today? The Portuguese for example made and played a flat back version of the mandolin and they've been over here a long time! We know that violins were made here almost as long as European settlement existed here ,why not other instruments?  By the 1890's there were thousands of Italian Americans and by that I mean people of Italian decent who were born here. None of them got the idea to try and build a mandolin until Lyon and Healy gave them the idea?

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## MikeEdgerton

Martin was a late comer to the mandolin business. It was already thriving when old C.F. finally started building mandolins. From what I've read he didn't want to be in that business. He didn't want to make ukes a few years later but that instrument ended up saving the company. I think Lyon and Healy got into the business because there was a market for the product. Mandolins were either being imported or built by smaller companies. Keep in mind that L&H grew out of a retail business. They didn't start out manufacturing.

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DavidKOS, 

hank

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## pfox14

> Joseph Bohmann 'claimed' to have made the first mandolin in the US. I am at work and away from my notes, but it may have been on one of his printed catalogues (1895) that he claimed to have made a mandolin for the Spanish Students. This is a bit odd as the original Spanish Students played bandurrias, but there was a group of Italian mandolin players who appeared quite soon after, led by Carlo Curti and they may have been the people for whom Bohmann made that mandolin. There is some information about this in a chapter on early mandolins in the US which can be downloaded off my website here. This one of a couple of chapters of the forthcoming book on mandolin history which, with luck, will be published later this year and can be downloaded as a teaser   I have also made my first forays onto facebook with a page about the book. There are a few interesting photos of mandolins there as well. New friends are welcome !
> 
> Cheers


Great article Graham. Thank you for sharing that. I am sure your book will be awesome. Love the cover

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## Scot63

Graham, I just read the chapter on early American mandolins, which you so graciously let us download for free. Based on that chapter, I can't wait for the book to come out. It's very well written (concise, informative, not so detailed to be cranky). And I say this as a professional editor. Please do keep us posted on progress! I have a dead ringer for the Lyon & Healy American Conservatory instrument on p. 78 (actually, mine's in better shape and gets played nearly every day). Reading this chapter made my day!

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## allenhopkins

Martin apparently made a now-obscure Style G mandolin in the mid 1890's, per Mike Longworth's Martin history.  He states:

_"Little is known about the G series mandolin.  There was a small catalog issued about 1896 when Mr. F.H. Martin was making his first entry into the mandolin market, and the catalog showed the G mandolins.  They may well have been serially numbered...Since the sales book for the period begins in 1898, no actual sales of the G mandolins were recorded."_ [Mike Longworth, _Martin Guitars: A History,_ Colonial Press, 1980 revised edition]

Longworth used Martin sales records as the basis of much of his price and production information, and his earliest records apparently were from 1898.  Martin first cataloged its Styles 1-6 bowl-back mandolins in 1898, probably nearly a decade after other US-made instruments were cataloged.

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## John Flynn

I took a mandolin workshop with Lil' Rev once and he is a bit of a self-styled fretted instrument historian. He claims that as soon as the hoop/skinhead style banjo started to get popular in the US, which is after Joel Sweeney became popular in blacktop minstrel shows in the 1830's, people started putting all kinds of fretted instrument necks on banjo bodies for the volume boost. Also, the mandolin would have been well known at that time, with examples likely brought to the US by European immigrants. He said he can't prove it, but he feels certain that the the first mandolins made here were banjo mandolins and they were probably "Frankensteined" together from existing mandolins and banjos starting in the mid-1800's.

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## Graham McDonald

Thank you Paul and Scot63 for your kind words. Paul's site has been very useful background for the Gibson chapter. There has been a fair bit of editing done by a retired academic musicologist friend, who has been forensically going through as he would a PhD thesis and pointing out inconsistencies and the like. Only a couple of chapter to go. My current thinking on publication is to run a KickStarter project to see if I can pre-sell enough copies that will cover the cost of the entire print run and have them sent out by a mailing house. There will be widespread invitations to participate  :Grin: 

Cheers

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## allenhopkins

> ...he feels certain that the the first mandolins made here were banjo mandolins and they were probably "Frankensteined" together from existing mandolins and banjos starting in the mid-1800's.


Wouldn't there be some around, then?  All the mandolin-banjos I've seen have been pretty clearly post-1900.  And were the "existing mandolins" imported?

Very few musicians seem to have played mandolins in the US before the 1880's.  I did a bit of research on Civil War-era mandolin references couple years ago, and only found one or two -- about the same number as from the colonial period, when all references refer to immigrant musicians or music teachers from Mediterranean countries, who presumably brought their mandolins with them.

In order to want to make a mandolin-banjo, to make your mandolin louder, you first have to have a mandolin, right?  So who, and where, were the "mid-1800's" mandolin players who started creating these prototypical mandolin-banjos?  We find only a scattering of references to American mandolinists, before the "mandolin craze" hit after the Spanish Students tour.

I would guess that some US instrument manufacturer seized on the mandolin's new popularity, and started building them in the mid-to-late 1880's.  Who that was, is not readily discernible, but mandolins did start showing up in distributor catalogs before 1890, as documented above.

Joseph Bohmann claimed (see label *here,* in mandolin three-quarters down the page) that his "Guitars, Violins, Zithers and Mandolins" won prizes at the 1889 Paris Exposition.  Did he actually exhibit _mandolins_ in 1889, or did he exhibit other instruments, and just expand his claims to include mandolins he made in subsequent years?  No way to tell.  (We do know that the big attraction of the Exposition was the brand-new Eiffel Tower.)

Bohmann, who promoted himself relentlessly, is still a decent bet as the first domestic mandolin builder.  I'd vote for Lyon & Healy, myself -- alternatively, an as-yet-unnamed Italian immigrant luthier in New York City.

*Later:* or how about August Pollmann? His "mandoline banjos" show an 1887 patent date (advertising copy *here*).

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## journeybear

FWIW - The description of a Washburn mandola for sale at AMS includes the following:

_Lyon & Healy, before incorporating as Washburn, was the first American manufacturer of mandolins until Washburn began making mandolins in 1887._ 

No source cited for that statement. And since the description also includes the following, its veracity may be considered suspect:

_The Mandola instrument is the ancestor of the modern day Mandolin. The strings are tuned in unison, rather than in octaves as seen on traditional modern Mandolins._

[Note: Put "Washburn mandola" into the search engine to get to the item.]

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## Jim Garber

> FWIW - The description of a Washburn mandola for sale at AMS includes the following:
> 
> _Lyon & Healy, before incorporating as Washburn, was the first American manufacturer of mandolins until Washburn began making mandolins in 1887._ 
> 
> No source cited for that statement. And since the description also includes the following, its veracity may be considered suspect:
> 
> _The Mandola instrument is the ancestor of the modern day Mandolin. The strings are tuned in unison, rather than in octaves as seen on traditional modern Mandolins._
> 
> [Note: Put "Washburn mandola" into the search engine to get to the item.]


Complete nonsense. L&H did not incorporate as Washburn. Washburn was a brand.

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## pfox14

> FWIW - The description of a Washburn mandola for sale at AMS includes the following:
> 
> _Lyon & Healy, before incorporating as Washburn, was the first American manufacturer of mandolins until Washburn began making mandolins in 1887._ 
> 
> No source cited for that statement. And since the description also includes the following, its veracity may be considered suspect:
> 
> _The Mandola instrument is the ancestor of the modern day Mandolin. The strings are tuned in unison, rather than in octaves as seen on traditional modern Mandolins._
> 
> [Note: Put "Washburn mandola" into the search engine to get to the item.]


I can tell you for sure that Lyon & Healy never "incorporated" as Washburn. Washburn was their brand name only. Yes, it is true that the mandola came first, then the mandolin. In fact, the Italian word "mandolino" means "small mandola".

The Bohmann instruments sure are fascinating, but there seems to be no conclusive evidence that he built any "traditional" mandolins before 1887.

I also don't buy the pre-1880 mandolin-banjo theory and agree that surviving examples of these instruments do not exist to my knowledge, and don't believe that they would be considered mandolins in the truest sense of the word.

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## journeybear

It's sales-speak, an odd idiom, not often reliable for factual source material. Yes, I thought this was pretty erroneous. It came to my attention via the laughable bit about tuning in octaves. Nice of them to mention the mandola => mandolin evolution; much of the rest seemed iffy.

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## MikeEdgerton

Cafe member Hubert Pleijsier's book *Washburn Prewar Instrument Styles* is in my eyes the definitive book on Lyon and Healy instruments from the early days. Anyone interested in the history of the company does themselves a disservice by not getting a copy and reading it. It pretty much changed what most of us thought the history of that company was.

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Mandophile, 

Screenclassics

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## Jacqke

Does anyone have any opinion as to how reliable Clarence Partee was? He claimed in 1902 to have handled Bohman's mandolin. It looks like that was 1883 or 1884, but that may be vague. 

http://www.newspapers.com/clip/1966977//

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## Graham McDonald

> Does anyone have any opinion as to how reliable Clarence Partee was? He claimed in 1902 to have handled Bohman's mandolin. It looks like that was 1883 or 1884, but that may be vague. 
> 
> http://www.newspapers.com/clip/1966977//


Partee was the owner and editor of The Cadenza from it's start in the mid 1890s until he sold it around 1906 or 08. He was also one of the instigators of the American Guild of Banjoists, Mandolinists and Guitarists which was the peak body for encouraging the playing of those instruments and trying to raise the standards of teaching. He also had a brief excursion into instrument manufacture with an odd bowlback mandolin he called the American Lute, based on a curious patent and featuring an asymmetrical body and off-set soundhole. He certainly would have been across most of what was happening in the BMG world in the US during his time as editor of The Cadenza, and does state he was in Chicago in the early 1880s, which would have been right at the beginning of the resurgence of interest in the mandolin when the mandolin playing community would have been pretty small.

Cheers

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## pfox14

The article about Bohmann certainly has some weight given the fact that Clarence Partee wrote it. The problem is Bohmann never patented a mandolin design and as far as I know, there's no definitive proof that he started making mandolins in 1883. However, anything's possible.

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## ollaimh

since there were English guitars in the time of ben franklin,(I have read a reference that franklin played one), if find it hard to believe there were no mandiolins in the Americas.  I have a rough French guitarra allemange(the French cittern, or English guitar cousin) that dates to 1750/60.   still being repaired.   the French palyed mandolins, even if it can be argued that the english didn't.(which I would not argue).  so I would be amazed if there were no  early mandolins.  however i'll have to ask around and do a little research.

my guitarra allemange came from davenport iowa. the french had a trading post and fort there around 1750.  that's America now!!

these would have been luthier made instruments and not companies, but that would count, by me.

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## Jim Garber

I knew there was a thread about mandolin in America's early days. You can read it here: *Mandolin in colonial America*.

That still does not mean that these instruments were made in America or give us much of a time line to figure out when ones were made here.

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## allenhopkins

> ...That still does not mean that these instruments were made in America or give us much of a time line to figure out when ones were made here.


And you will note from the cited article that the mandolinists mentioned were immigrants from Mediterranean countries, who presumably brought their mandolins with them -- though one could have commissioned a colonial luthier (I'm sure there were some) to build a "one-of" here for his use.

I did a little Google search for mentions of mandolins from the Civil War era (for one of those threads discussing whether and what kind of mandolins could be used at re-enactments).  I found a couple of mentions of mandolin playing or players, but no discussion at all of anyone making them here.

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## keef

L&H claimed that they were the first US manufacturer of mandolins. I do not know if that claim is accurate, but L&H's own factory did not start its operations until around 1883/4. The first Washburn mandolin line was listed in the 1886 L&H catalog IIRC, and the first ad for these mandolins that I have found dates to 1887.

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## ollaimh

I e mailed a friend who has reseqarched French music in new france. he said there were references in letters to lutes made in quebec city . maisoneuve played one.(the early governor of montreal)  and references to mandolin being widely played in france, and even the guitarra allemange being played in quebec, but no actual reference to mandolin. but I am going to keep looking.  there was a full ensemble set of pre 1750 instruments found in the attic of a quebec convent a decade or so ago, i'll have to look and see what was there. I know there were viola d'amore cousins and lutes.  if there was a mandolin it would likely have been gut strung, but not necessarily as they had wire strung guitarras.   they used brass and iron strings.

also I saw a few sites saying mandolin was played in the civil war era, so were they all imported?
 mandolin might not yet have been common but I can't believe they weren't played

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## John Flynn

Apropos of the banjo mandolin exchange, I ran across this online:



Farris was in Hartford, CT.

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BradKlein

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## allenhopkins

> ...also I saw a few sites saying mandolin was played in the civil war era, so were they all imported?
>  mandolin might not yet have been common but I can't believe they weren't played


See Post #30 above; I found a couple of references to people playing mandolin around the Civil War, but no references to manufacturers.

That's not to say individual instruments weren't built in the US; there was no shortage of people making musical instruments, and if someone wanted a mandolin, he/she could contact a maker of violins, or guitars, and ask to have one built.  When we speak of "manufacturers," we're generally thinking of a shop or factory producing them on a larger scale, and for sale generally -- not just a "one-of" for an individual who contracts for it.  As with the discussion of lutes in French Canada, there's no reason to doubt that a craftsperson could have built a mandolin, or several, if there were musicians who would pay for them.


*Later:* with regard to John Farris and the banjolin, there's a brief discussion in the *Wikipedia article on mandolin-banjos.*

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## ollaimh

I asked a few people,  in the French early music world. they had a lot of references for mandolin in ancient regime france, but nothing they could remember specifically saying anyone played one in new france. they believed it was played in new france, which doesn't prove made there but it would be a start.

they had the guitarre allemange and the lute. maisoneuve played the lute(the early governor of montreal) and his diary has an entry of having a local wood worker make him one--a small tenor lute.  not quite a mandolin.

i'll keep digging.  and try to post pictures of my guitarre allemange

my previous post disappeared btw

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## Petrus

I haven't heard much about the Snedeker company though I briefly owned one of theirs.  This is an 1895 article mentioning their factory move to Muncie, Indiana.

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## ollaimh

wrong picture--as must be obvious.  can't find the right guitarre pics in my confuser.  sorry

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## ollaimh

good article jim, I suspected that mandolin was played in America before the revolution--or should I say the tax revolt.

this says little about local manufacturing.  I do think there must have been some, now for the easter egg hunt!!

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## mandroid

Was The CF Martin family  making guitars and Mandolins in Europe , before Immigrating?

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## allenhopkins

> Was The CF Martin family  making guitars and Mandolins in Europe , before Immigrating?


Mike Longworth's quite authoritative _Martin Guitars: A History_ (Colonial Press, 1980 rev. edition), states (page 1), _"The Martin tradition of guitar making actually predates 1833 by quite a number of years.  As early as 1807 there were references establishing Johann Georg Martin as a guitar maker.  A few years later his  son, Christian Frederick Martin...left the land of his birth forever to take up his craft in the new world of the USA."_  Martin came from a woodworking family in Markneukirchen, Saxony, Germany, and had apprenticed for 15 years to guitar-maker Johann Stauffer in Vienna, Austria.  Reportedly, he emigrated to America after the instrument makers of Markneukirchen, to which he returned after apprenticeship, got in a dispute with the carpenters' guild over who should be building what.

Mandolins?  No record of Martin or his descendants building a mandolin before the 1890's.   Could a German guitar-maker, or violin builder, have made a mandolin for a musician who wanted one?  Sure -- but we have no record of that.  The mandolins from the 18th century, and earlier, are largely of Italian manufacture, with some French and Spanish "relatives," not Northern European.

We know that C F Martin, once established in the US, concentrated on building guitars, and that the company he founded didn't diversify into other instruments -- mandolins, ukuleles, etc. -- until the end of the 19th, and beginning of the 20th centuries.  So the likelihood of Martin being the "first American mandolin manufacturer" is near-zero.

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## brunello97

Vinaccia mandolins ca. time of the American Revolution.  I don't think anyone was playing _Rawhide_. Yet.

Hard to prove a negative.  Speculation about whether anyone was building in the early US or Canada will remain just that until something turns up.  I hope it does, but count me among the Doubting Thomases until it does.

Mick

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allenhopkins, 

DavidKOS

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## Graham McDonald

The folks who have been trying to flog that first instrument in your pictures have been claiming it as a Vinaccia for years. It is almost certainly a oddly modified Genoese mandolin which the Vinaccias had nothing to do with.  :Smile: 

It is interesting that people have been desperate for years to find evidence of pre-1880 American mandolins. There might well have been the occasional 18th century mandolin floating around the US or Canada, but it seems to be forgotten that for the first three quarters of the 19th century the mandolin was almost universally ignored, and there were few even in Europe.

Cheers

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allenhopkins

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## brunello97

> The folks who have been trying to flog that first instrument in your pictures have been claiming it as a Vinaccia for years. It is almost certainly a oddly modified Genoese mandolin which the Vinaccias had nothing to do with.


Thanks, Graham.  The provenance of these mandolins isn't of real importance to me, or probably to the conversation.  :Wink:  If the dates are way off, that would be another thing.   I just hoped to provide some examples in the context of the discussion going on about what mandolins from this era might have looked like--quite different from those in 1876 or 1976.

The article Jim links to has some interesting discussion of mandolin performances and _teaching_ in 18th century America and is really worth the read.

Mick

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## DaveL35

According to the Johnston/Boak book _Martin Guitars: A Technical Reference_, Martin began building bowl-back mandolins in 1895, and by 1899 they were selling two thirds as many mandolins as guitars.

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## Jacqke

This isn't about manufacturing in America, but it is a  reference to a mandolin in Philadelphia in 1885.

http://www.newspapers.com/clip/20616...phia_mandolin/

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brunello97

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## Jim Garber

> This isn't about manufacturing in America, but it is a  reference to a mandolin in Philadelphia in 1885.
> 
> http://www.newspapers.com/clip/20616...phia_mandolin/


Typo? The posting you linked to says 1785.

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## brunello97

> This isn't about manufacturing in America, but it is a  reference to a mandolin in Philadelphia in 1885.
> 
> http://www.newspapers.com/clip/20616...phia_mandolin/


This is fascinating, Jacqke, thanks for posting. Your link is going to slow down my productivity at work this morning.  :Wink:  

The mandolin is for sale at a bookseller's shop right, next door to a coffee shop. The more things change the more they stay the same.

I also enjoy the ad below it for a load of Honduran mahogany. Probably not for mandolin production, but it gives some indication of the kinds of possible links / resources that fueled Nazareth, PA some time later.

Mick

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## chris storz

I remember my great grandfather having a beautiful L&H that he said he gotten as a young man in the 'Naughts. I remember it looking practically new. His greatest joys were playing it and polishing it. Great grandmother used to complain about how much he spent on strings. I wish I had known anything about anything when I was a kid because I am pretty sure that great grandmother sold it for $50 when he died in the early eighties.

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## Jacqke

It was a typo; I did mean 1785 for the year of that clipping. It was one of the only early mandolin mentions in early U.S. newspapers that I accessed. I wonder how anyone knew what an "excellent" mandolin meant.

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## ollaimh

bah to the sceptics.  if they ben franklin played an English guitar(the English cittern) and maisoneuve played a guitarre allemange(the French cittern)  those are mandolin family instruments. why don't they count. French sources say maisoneuve had some of his musical instruments made in quebec city,  well before 1725.

i'll keep asking a francophone friends about mandolins. I read French but I am in a small city and may not be able to find old manuscripts.  moreover music isn't much researched by French Canadian historians.  i'm intrigued, so i'm going over to the university de Moncton and ask at the music department. when I get the chance.  I expect the real researchers are only in montreal but i'll give it a shot.(there's a big early music scene in montreal)

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## allenhopkins

Well, "English guitar" and "cittern" were used interchangeably for what was basically the same instrument, and we now classify the cittern as a member of the mandolin family.  But the lineage of the mandolin split off from the larger-bodied instruments, so I'm not sure finding a cittern builder in French Canada would answer the question of "Who was the first American mandolin manufacturer?"

And I _am_ sensitive to the fact that Canadians are "Americans" too, though "American" usually refers to the US in common speech.

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Mandophile

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## rmcdow

> Did some more digging on Lyon & Healy. The earliest American patent for a mandolin design I could find is Pat. # 368,461 from 1887 by George Durkee who was Lyon & Healy's Chief Engineer. The patent is essentially a standard bowl-back mandolin. Also got pages of L&H's 1889 catalog showing their bowl-back mandolins. Apparently, L&H was importing fretted instruments prior to 1885, but were disappointed with the quality, so they built their own manufacturing plant in Chicago. If anyone finds anything earlier, let me know.


Benjamin Bradbury, patent # US262564, August 15, 1882, for a banjo mandolin.  Don't be put off by the illustration, read the description and the claims, they both describe a mandolin.  There is an example, which is more of a 10 string tenor banjo with double strings, in the MET.

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## rmcdow

> This isn't about manufacturing in America, but it is a  reference to a mandolin in Philadelphia in 1885.
> 
> http://www.newspapers.com/clip/20616...phia_mandolin/


That paper is dated 1785.

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## Mandophile

> Does anyone have any opinion as to how reliable Clarence Partee was? He claimed in 1902 to have handled Bohman's mandolin. It looks like that was 1883 or 1884, but that may be vague. 
> 
> http://www.newspapers.com/clip/1966977//


You bet he is credible. Clarence Lockhart Partee was the founder and an editor of "Cadenza." He sold it to Walter Jacobs in Boston around 1907. 

Partee was a student of Bohmann but what we don't know is which instrument did he study with? possibly banjo? Partee excelled at that but all these fellows were multi-instrumentalists.

Partee is mentioned in several passages in "Guitar in America." BTW, he does have a Wikipedia entry

I'm currently writing a narrative about Emilio Calamara and will let you know when it is posted at Gregg Miner's website. I believe they (Calamara, Bohman, Partee) were traveling in the same circles.

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Jacqke

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## rcc56

Hank Schwartz, who is one of the top authorities on A.C. Fairbanks, states that Fairbanks "Began manufacture of banjos, mandolins, and guitars as Fairbanks & Cole at 121 Court Street" in 1880.

Oliver Ditson hired a young man named John C. Haynes and made him a partner in 1857.  They apparently began manufacturing instruments in the Boston area in 1865 under Haynes' name.  We know they made guitars, mandolins, zithers, banjos, and flutes.  I could not find a date for when mandolin production began.  Pehr Anderberg, a Swedish luthier, immigrated to the US during the Civil War, moved to Somerville MA in 1880, and set up shop making guitars and mandolins for John C. Haynes, and perhaps other Boston manufacturers.  Julius Nelson and other future founders of Vega worked in Anderberg's shop, and both George Washburn Lyon and P.J. Healy are said to have worked for Haynes.  See www.baystateguitar.com for more info.

Apparently, Ditson helped to set up the Lyon & Healy company.

In his book "America's Instrument, The Banjo in the Nineteenth Century," Jim Bollman refers to Anderberg's shop.  Anderberg was the manufacturer of the Pollman instruments.

So if the above info is accurate, we can say that Haynes, Anderberg, Nelson, Fairbanks, and Cole all had a hand in the development of the American mandolin and guitar in the later 19th century.  Sorting out who built what, and when they built it we may not be able to determine.

Perhaps Hank Schwartz and Jim Bollman will read this thread and contribute some more concrete information.

The origin of mandolin making in America is buried in obscurity.  I suspect more than one person tried their hand at building by the early 1800's.  When the instrument started to catch on in the late 1800's, the established guitar makers added mandolins to their product lines.

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## Mandophile

Lots to digest and I agree on most points made; however, I will say that the original question should have been expressed in this way: the first musical instruments manufacturer who happened to also make mandolins. The answer is still obscure but let's put it into context. As to Haynes in Boston and Ditson leading up to and during the nation's centennial in 1876, I believe manufacturing of patriotic (brass and wind) instruments for marching purposes had been going on for a while. 
I believe that the earliest evidence for manufacturing fretted instruments may be 1880. According to pre-1880s documentation, Joseph Bohmann called himself a cabinet maker and carpenter. The 1880 Chicago directory and census may be the earliest indications showing Bohmann and his father officially described as "makes musical instruments." Still vague in terms of 'first' but it means they may have already switched to making musical instruments in 1879 to qualify for 1880 criteria. Hambly was smart to title his dissertation...Mandolins SINCE 1880...because did not have access to the records that we are afforded when he wrote it in 1977. 

That said, Neapolitan bowlbacks were not seen, much less heard until the Neapolitan mando players showed up with them in the mid-1870s: Fachutar, Tipaldi, V. Leon 

...but as Bruce Hammon put it the other day: we have yet to address the elephant in the room: Chicago's Lyon & Healy.

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DavidKOS, 

Jacqke

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## Mandophile

A careful reading of MTR's November 19, 1904, Vol. 39, No. 21 shows just how tight the race was with Bohmann given a slight edge over Lyon & Healy.  see attached

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Jacqke, 

Jess L., 

Mandolincelli

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## Mandophile

I apologize for unintended redundancy. I had missed some earlier postings. Nevertheless, wanted to add that I did find Lyon & Healy advertisements in several Chicago directories (1870s) and some included mandolins, lutes, dulcimers etc. My question is this: I've read that Bohmann started something he called "Bohmann's American Industry in Chicago" in 1878 but I am having a hard time verifying that. I'd appreciate any help in pointing me to any written documentation. Thanks.

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DavidKOS

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## allenhopkins

Let me throw a little sideways thought into the mix: we're sorta limiting the "first American manufacturer" to the Northeast-Midwest instrument manufacturing scene -- Chicago, Boston, NY City, etc.

Mandolin-like instruments are common in music from the Iberian peninsula, Spain and Portugal.  Any chance that someone in the Hispanic-cultured part of the US, was building them even earlier?  The Spanish Southwest was settled centuries before the Atlantic seaboard.

Remember, the mandolin craze in the US was at least in part started by a concert tour by the "Spanish Students," who actually were probably playing bandurrias...

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## Screenclassics

> Cafe member Hubert Pleijsier's book *Washburn Prewar Instrument Styles* is in my eyes the definitive book on Lyon and Healy instruments from the early days. Anyone interested in the history of the company does themselves a disservice by not getting a copy and reading it. It pretty much changed what most of us thought the history of that company was.


Changed for better or worse? Not clear on what you mean. I do love the book and all the information in it. It indicates the Washburn mandolin came out in mid to late 1880’s after guitar which was 1893. 

Jan

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## MikeEdgerton

In any historical context there are assumptions made about factories, how much product was produced and by whom. Hubert's book clarified a whole lot of misinformation that many of us had acquired along the way and assumed was true. For one thing Lyon and Healy manufactured more than was previously thought. Most of us old people in this world of musical instruments have been learning things the hard way for a long time.

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## Jacqke

> Mandophile: A careful reading of MTR's November 19, 1904, Vol. 39, No. 21 shows just how tight the race was with Bohmann given a slight edge over Lyon & Healy. see attached


Thank you for posting that. I added a paragraph from it to the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandol...usic_virtuosos

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Jess L., 

Mandophile

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## Jim Garber

> Thank you for posting that. I added a paragraph from it to the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandol...usic_virtuosos


I couldn’t find your addition anywhere on that Wikipedia page. Give us a clue.

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## Jacqke

I didn't mean to hide it.  I ended up placing it into the fourth paragraph in the United States section. It worked to give perspective for how big the mandolin had become in the United States by 1900.

"Mandolin awareness in the United States blossomed in the 1880s, as the instrument became part of a fad that continued into the mid-1920s.[57][58] According to Clarence L. Partee a publisher in the BMG movement (banjo, mandolin and guitar), the first mandolin made in the United States was made in 1883 or 1884 by Joseph Bohmann, who was an established maker of violins in Chicago.[201] Partee characterized the early instrument as being larger than the European instruments he was used to, with a "peculiar shape" and "crude construction," and said that the quality improved, until American instruments were "superior" to imported instruments.[201] At the time, Partee was using an imported French-made mandolin.[201] [59] _By the year 1900 mandolin sales constituted 10.6 percent of the nation's "small goods" musical instrument sales, less than the 21.3 percent that music boxes held and more than the guitar's 9.6 percent.[202] The mandolin also outsold zithers, "Apollo harps" and autoharps at 8.6 percent and brass instruments for bands at 7.5 percent of total sales.[202]"_

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Mandophile

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## Jim Garber

Excellent. Thanks, Jacqke.

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## Screenclassics

> In any historical context there are assumptions made about factories, how much product was produced and by whom. Hubert's book clarified a whole lot of misinformation that many of us had acquired along the way and assumed was true. For one thing Lyon and Healy manufactured more than was previously thought. Most of us old people in this world of musical instruments have been learning things the hard way for a long time.


Got it! The book is certainly a wealth of information. I've already gotten my money out of it even if I never open it again!

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## Jim Garber

> In any historical context there are assumptions made about factories, how much product was produced and by whom. Hubert's book clarified a whole lot of misinformation that many of us had acquired along the way and assumed was true. For one thing Lyon and Healy manufactured more than was previously thought. Most of us old people in this world of musical instruments have been learning things the hard way for a long time.


Actually, L&H boasted in their catalogs that they manufactured over 100,000 instruments per year which seemed way high to most of us these days. I think Hubert gave us some more realistic numbers.

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## Jess L.

> Thank you for posting that. I added a paragraph from it to the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandol...usic_virtuosos


Thanks Jacqke!  :Mandosmiley:  




> I couldn't find your addition anywhere on that Wikipedia page. Give us a clue.


For stuff like that, you can usually find the part you want in about two seconds  :Grin:  by using a very handy but sorta not-too-well-known browser feature called _"Find in page"_ or _"Find"_. 

In this case, I had my browser search that Wikipedia page for the word "bohmann" (not case-sensitive) and the browser automatically scrolled to the first instance of that word, which in this case (at the time of this writing, anyway) turns out to be the paragraph being discussed. 

These days I'm familiar with only two OS's  :Redface:  - Windows and Android -  :Whistling:  so FWIW here is how that procedure works in those.

*1.* On a *Windows* PC with Chrome browser: 

Press Ctrl+F (simultaneously press the "Control" key and the "f" key). *Or, alternatively,* if for some reason you're not into keyboard shortcuts, you can click on the 3 little dots near the browser window's upper right corner, and then (in the drop-down menu) click where it says "Find...".
In the resulting search box, type "bohmann" (without the quotes). The page automatically scrolls to the first instance of that word on that page. (In cases where there is more than one instance of the desired word on a page, you can either keep pressing the "Enter" key, or alternatively click on the little up/down arrows in the search box, to cycle through all the instances of the word on that page.)
*Windows screenshot* of what it looked like _after_ I did the Ctrl+F and typed the word "bohmann" into the little box - I added the pink circles for clarity for purposes of this post, but the browser automatically added the colored highlight onto the searched-for word: 




*2.* *Android phone* with Chrome browser, has a very similar page-search procedure:  

Tap the three little dots in upper right corner of phone browser window.
Tap "Find in page".
In the resulting search box, type "bohmann" (without the quotes). The page automatically scrolls to the first instance of that word on that page. If there had been more than one instance of that word, you could have tapped the little up/down arrows in the search box to find the other places on the page where that word occurred.
*Android screenshot #1*, shows what it looked like after I tapped the three little dots in the corner, this is where I then needed to tap where it says "Find in page": 



*Android screenshot #2*, this is how it looked _after_ I tapped "Find in page" and then typed the word "bohmann" into the little box: 

 


------------
_I have no clue about other browsers or OS's nowadays (I'm not as much of a tech-gadget person as I used to be),  but one would hope that they probably have somewhat similar search-in-page functionality._

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## Jess L.

> Actually, L&H boasted in their catalogs that they manufactured over 100,000 instruments per year which seemed way high to most of us these days. I think Hubert gave us some more realistic numbers.


Probably...  :Smile:  but then on the other hand, there does seem to be a mysteriously large number of old bowlback mandolins that constantly emerge from hibernation  :Wink:  and end up on eBay etc... it does kind of make a person wonder just exactly how many of the things were made way back when, for so many of them to still be in existence...  :Confused:

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## ollaimh

the one i have from circa 1760(according to several experts) was found in old fort st louis area , in a barn , near davenport iowa!!! so there!!! na na na na na na, but i can't say where it was actually built, he said sheepishly. still i say found near davenport, must have been made near davenport on the fur trading post!!!

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DavidKOS

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## DavidKOS

> the one i have from circa 1760(according to several experts) was found in old fort st louis area , in a barn , near davenport iowa!!! so there!!! na na na na na na, but i can't say where it was actually built, he said sheepishly. still i say found near davenport, must have been made near davenport on the fur trading post!!!


It looks much like a cittern.

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## allenhopkins

Davenport on the Mississippi, in the 18th century would likely have French or Spanish traders bringing their gear, possibly including an instrument such as this, into the area.  I would be interested in learning --

1.  How could "several experts" have dated the instrument so exactly -- 1760?

2.  Isn't it more likely that it was manufactured elsewhere, perhaps even in Europe, and brought to the area by a trader?

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## Jim Garber

> the one i have from circa 1760(according to several experts) was found in old fort st louis area , in a barn , near davenport iowa!!! so there!!! na na na na na na, but i can't say where it was actually built, he said sheepishly. still i say found near davenport, must have been made near davenport on the fur trading post!!!





> It looks much like a cittern.


Agreed. Check out *Rob Mackillop's page*. Highly unlikely that it was made in the North America. And that would have been in French territory probably imported.

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allenhopkins

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## brunello97

FWIW, that territory, Upper Louisiana--as well as the lower territory and NOLA, was also actually under Spanish control around that time period having passed over to them following various Euro-conflicts. The French got it back under Napoleon and then passed it along to the US.  (Not that I think this is a Spanish instrument.) 
It is true, the Spanish didn't exert much of an influence very far up the Mississippi. But they tried to get in on the fur trade, etc.
Currently reading an excellent book on the subject....
Mick

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Bill Findley, 

Jim Garber, 

Mandophile

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## ollaimh

aw youse guys are picking on me.   ok the experts thought circa 1760, not exact. the head stock i have to admit looks like tielke, so probably a french copy of a tielke. (or a cheaper tielke--he did have a sort of factory that turned out players instruments as well as the hand made court presentation models.) but it could have been made in old fort st louis.  i have the label that says so--i wrote it myself!!!

next project. send high resolution pictures to the dendrochronoligy expert at the university of sasketchewan.

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## ollaimh

it may have legally been underr spanish control after 1763, but not before.  it was french territory before 1763.  the french had a string of trading posts and forts right down to louisianna and across the plains through manitoba canada and up the sasketchewan rivers and up the missouri river.

even after 1763 there were no spanish authorities in the davenport area, the fur traders were from montreal. the old "northwest company", and it probably took twenty years for the french in the hinterland to switch allegiances of quit the country.  

best survey history book by eccles:"france in america". the french were at the rockies by 1685, and to the pacific by 1710.  waaaay before louis and clark. they had an extensive trade network and alliances with the natives.

vive les voyageurs!!

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## ollaimh

the seven years war ended in 1763, then the louisianna territory was technically given to spain, but they never had settlements or forts in the north mississippi or it's tributaries.    the french got it back in 1800 and sold to the usa in 1803. so spanish control was very brief and  they only occupied new orleans and area.

- - - Updated - - -




> It looks much like a cittern.


it is, the french version, guitarra allemand

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## allenhopkins

> ...vive les voyageurs!!


Huh –– I was spelling it "voyeurs."  Or does that mean something else...?

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ollaimh

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## CarlM

The earliest white settlement in the area was by Julien Dubuque, about 70 miles north of Davenport.  He was a Frenchman mining lead with a charter from the Spanish authorities and Mesquakie natives.  He came into the area about 1785 and got his mining grant in 1788.  
French fur traders regularly camped near Prairie du Chien, about 130 miles north, in the early 1700s with no clear dates but permanent settlements did not occur till after 1800.  Davenport was not settled till around 1836.   I highly doubt any barns or houses or any form of white settlement was in the Davenport area in 1760 or even before 1800.   Joliet and Marquette came through in 1673 but regular settlement was much later.  If this was made in 1760 I would expect it came into the area much later.

I live about an hour northwest of the area and have played quite a few old time and bluegrass jam sessions in the Davenport area.  There is also a town named Bluegrass nearby where we would meet to have jam sessions at a ladies house.  She is quite a good mandolin player.(minimal mandolin content).

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## Bob Buckingham

That book, El Norte looks real interesting.  There are families with deep roots and Hispanic surnames in the deep south.  We forget that in all of the Americas, north, south and central, Spanish is the predominate language. So it follows that their instruments would be found and their influence felt in ways that have become ingrained in our culture.

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## ollaimh

you are not reading french sources. there was a french fur trading fort there from around 1700, perhaps a few years earlier. american history books often ignore the french settlements.  again read eccles:"france in america""  for a real history that used french sources.

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## ollaimh

in addition the french fort near modern st louis was established in 1723, after there was already a small fur trading settlement there from twenty or thirty years earlier. (about 1200 french habitants farmed there to support the trade down the mississippi and up the missouri rivers) the same fur trading factors established trading posts up the missouri river all the way to the rockies.  most were only  seasonally occupied beyond fort chartes, and fort genevieve(near st louis).  this is why so many natives across the northern plains became catholic.  the priests were out there first with every fort.  the recollets, and obelets were aggressive in converting natives. moreover the french traded on a much fairer basis than american traders because they were trying to establish long term relationships, that is why the natives were mostly allied with the french during the north american wars.   eccles book is a good start for histpry that includes french sources.

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## ollaimh

a quick look the fort orleans on the missouri was built 1723 with 40 french soldiers and abandoned three years later wit 8 french soldiers.  fort st louis was near by. the exact location of neither is known now.  the jesuits and fur traders were at sault ste marie and macinac island in the 1660s and established a mission near green bay wisconsin in 1667. from there they traded and preached into the illinoir country through the 1670s to the 1690s and had established a small colony.  built the big fort de chartes 1720,  and started a stone one 1759, but never finished as the war came.  there was a lot more french spoken in illinois, wisconsin, missouri, kansas and iowa that english untill 1820, at the very least. it was the trade language between native tribes.  the french brokered many peace treaties among natives to build a trade network and oppose english expansion.  except for the souix and the iroquois most natives were french allies.   the souix were defeated by the french speaking metis on the northern buffalo herd at the battle of grand couteau,and earlier at the battle of white plains manitoba 1747, and had a grudge against the metis and french that lasts to today.. manitoba souix do not get along with other natives. the metis had the advantage of direct access to fire arms from the fur traders. most metis fathers were fur traders who didn't want to return to europe or quebec.

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## CarlM

You misunderstand.  There is no question there was settlement at St.  Louis fairly early.  There was a French monastery there at the great Indian mound at Cahokia also.  

St. Louis is quite a long way from Davenport.  It is roughly 270 miles (430 km).  In France it would be about the same distance as Paris to Calais.   Green Bay is even further.   It was not a one or two day trip at that time under primitive wilderness conditions.  Frenchman Julien Dubuque was in the Dubuque, Iowa area in 1785 about 70 miles(112 km) north of Davenport.   That was to mine lead ore.  Prior to that there were very few white people in the area.  Certainly no settlement.  The Ioway tribe was very, fiercely protective of their land rights though there were some incursions by Mesquakie (Sac and Fox) in the late 1700s as the white people pushed them west.  Mostly even other native tribes stayed off Ioway land.

The fur trade was not a major factor in the area due to the landscape.  It was mostly open prairie bisected by rivers.  Land that is forested now was kept open by fires.  The real fur trade was north and west.  There was a voyageur trail in northern Iowa but that was 130 miles(200 km) or further north from the west through Prairie du Chien, which had a primitive settlement on an island in the river, then to Green Bay.

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## ollaimh

fort st louis was not in st louis , it was near davenport and was recorded in french sources cites by eccles circa 1720. these distances were nothing to the voyageurs.  they canoed from montreal(from tadoussac in the earlier days) to the rockies and back for furs and other goods. the mississippi trade was much more in hides. the best beaver fur was further north but there was enough worth travelling for way up the missouri river and tributaries such as the little big horn river. as i say the french got along with natives much better than the english.  they traded fairly and built alliances.  they freely intermarried to forge bonds.  this was considered an abomination to the english and new englanders. fort orleans was also in iowa.

but as i said a mission near green bay 1670, a farming settlement near modern st louis by 1685 , trade and missionary activity all the way to new orleans soon after.   les voyageurs travelled as a way of life.

the fur trade had a usual turn around of two years from financing the expedition in montreal to the return from the far west to sell the furs. (another year to paris auctions)   it required financing over the long term and the companies were among the first in the world to used modern long term debt financing as a result.

the french records show they farmed for several years near old fort st louis to support the voyageurs.  that's settlement, and it was in the early 1700s, like i say, american historians often ignore french sources. which were very through as the priests who went along kept records that were sent to rome called the jesuit relations.  there are tens of thousands of jesuit relation, but written in french or latin.

if you can't read the french, whcih is well published you need to look the historians who can.

i remember when i was in florida near st augistine the local historian told us all how the spanish were first there--i chimed in, no the french were here a few decades earlier.  i got him cites later. he had a masters degree and didn't know about the french settlement in florida.  education is weak in the usa.  a history degree without a second language is unheard of in canada, or europe, and it must be a relevant language. anything on the opening of the mid west requires french or you're not meeting world historical standards.  i had to write a tranlsation exam from french into english with accuracy of %90 to get my honours history degree.

if you want there are quebecois historians who can give you the french records for the french in iowa, missouri and illinois, and up the missouri, but eccles book gives all the citations a general inquiry would need.

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## CarlM

That is interesting.  It is doubtful any relics remain from that era.  Any buildings would have been rough log cabins and manufacturing even more limited.  Even at Dubuque remnants or artifacts from the late 1700s are pretty limited and scant. There are no buildings left from that time.   I have been to the historical museum at Davenport many times and there is no mention of French settlement there despite an extensive exhibit on local history.  It is certainly something they would take pride in if they realized they had that early of a settlement.

There is mention of Joliet and Marquette through the area.  And of course voyageurs who traveled the Mississippi.  The Sauk and Fox (Mesquakie) had a major settlement on the Illinois side of the river into the early 1800s.  It is quite likely French traders would have met there.

The real musical claim to fame of the area was from much later when cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, one of the early jazz figures was born there.  There is a jazz festival celebrating his life every year.

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## Jess L.

Quite fascinating history info in this thread, very good reading.  :Mandosmiley:   :Smile:

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## BrucePHammond

This is interesting, simply because I posted a photo related to this thread some years ago, and I have researched Bohmann since around 2005. I will post the photo with a small addition, later.

Please clarify what you mean by mandolin manufacturer. In the 1880's, I could imagine it being someone who made mandolins by hand; or someone who has a semi-production line (a combination of parts made by vendors and parts made in house), or a small production line. 

Bohmann had a small production line of instrument making, on a mezzanine level he built on the third floor of his "3-story brick business with apartment flats," as the Chicago Tribune put it in 1897. Bohmann purchased it for cash, $25,000, if I recall.

A photo of this mezzanine workshop and some workers, along with other photos, was in a long ago issue of Vintage Guitar, with some documents, many of which were third generation photocopies, unfortunately. I cannot produce or name the VG back issue quickly. An eBay search might find it. Does anyone on this forum know anyone in that VG article who might have the original photos and documents? As a Bohmann biographer, I would love to visit them and get high resolution scans. 

But since Graham mentioned a Bohmann catalog page earlier, here is a scan of that page. 

Attached photo: 

The best way I could summarize this catalog page is to say Bohmann conflated TWO groups of Spanish Students for advertising purposes, in a deceptive ploy to sell mandolins. It became an advertising coup for him. All things considered, Bohmann made a good living for himself and his family, considering the gorilla who dwelled in the jungle of Chicago: Lyon and Healy.

The original Spanish students, as some of you know, first performed in America on New Year's Day, 1880, at Booth's (Boothe's?) Theater in NYC. They came from Spain, and in previous years held widely acclaimed concerts in Europe, and at a Paris Exposition, I think in 1876.They were an overnight sensation in NYC, and eventually toured many other cities.

In 1880, a plethora of classically trained Italian musicians lived in NYC. They seized the opportunity to make money. Soon, they were "off and running," christening themselves The Spanish Students, even copying the Spaniard's names on their playbills. 

If you are following along, and you read the Bohmann catalog page, you will see the Spanish Students' names are - Italian? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!? 

Only one name on the page is Spanish, one Mr. Seville, who reportedly purchased the first mandolin Bohmann ever made. Unfortunately, Bohmann does not supply a date for this purchase. 

Even though the original Spanish students played mostly bandurrias strung with gut, the Italians played mandolins, strung with steel strings. Some of these prominent Italian mandolinists soon moved on, establishing their own groups. 

It did not take long for some of them to establish Chicago as their home base. Attached is a photo of Valisi's Mandolin Orchestra. This is the photo I posted years ago on the cafe, but I am including a detail clipped out of my previous posting. The introductory inside page. This group photo appears in Bohmann's catalog, but originally came from a brochure mailed to Bohmann from Sig. Cesare Valisi. Attached photo:

 


This photo might confuse some of you. Reading the introductory page, you see it announces the Tenth Annual Concert Season of Valisi's Mandolin Orchestra, from 1894-1895. They had already been in Chicago for ten years in 1894. When I showed this brochure to Paul Ruppa, he was surprised that the Valisi brothers were established in Chicago that early. 

For those of you who don't know Paul, he is an authority on the mandolin in America. Some facts Paul Ruppa has published about the Spanish Students include the origin of their Spanish name, Estudiantina Espanol de Figaro. The name came from a Spanish satirist, Mariano José de Larra (24 March 1809 – 13 February 1837), who took the pen name Figaro. Their costumes were based on customary character roles within Spanish tradition, and had nothing to do with the italian opera named Figaro, as has been speculated previously on mandocafe. In recent years, Ruppa has teamed up with a researcher in Spain, and they have begun to fill in many gaps in the history of The Spanish Students, of which there were several Spanish incarnations.

But the Spanish Students mentioned in Bohmann's catalog are now called Carlos Curti's Spanish Students, a label Paul Ruppa has helped establish. 

I would guess this group photo predates the first annual concert season for Valisi's Mandolin Orchestra. Some mandolin players in Valisi's group would later endorse Bohmann mandolins, but in this photo, they all appear to hold Italian-made mandolins. One, Cesare Valisi, may be holding a Bohmann mandolin. But since no one has produced the original photo, blowing it up for detail is not useful.

I always have issues with my connection at home. Please bear with me. If I could document the earliest date Bohmann made a mandolin, it would be in the year 1882. Attached is a catalog page bearing the endorsement of Prof. E.H. Frey, with a testimonial dated Nov. 22, 1897. The good professor says he has been playing a Bohmann mandolin for fifteen years. Attached is that Bohmann catalog page scan. Allowing attempts to read Professor Frey's mind, if he meant he had been playing a Bohmann mandolin for _nearly_ fifteen years, then that would make the year 1883, which jives with the writings of Partee. 



As for primary historical documents confirming the above testimonial: I have the handwritten letter that Prof. E.H. Frey wrote to Bohmann, dated Nov. 22, 1897. Written at the top of the letter is his location: Lima, Ohio. Ergo, 1882-83 for the first year a true manufacturer built mandolins. I also have a customer letter in which the customer requests Bohmann to exchanged the wooden tuning pegs on the headstock with modern tuners. No clue as to when that instrument was built. 

Who knows when the original Spanish Students first played a concert in Chicago? Did Bohmann attend one of their concerts, or did he merely read about them in the paper? If Bohmann attended a 
Spanish Students concert, what was the likely date? Perhaps he built his first mandolin for Mr. Seville within a week of attending the concert. Who was this Mr. Seville character, anyway?

So as far as I know, that would be the earliest documented date that an instrument manufacturer built a mandolin. On the cover of his catalog, at the top of the drawing of the Bohmann factory, are the words, "Established 1876." Also, the name of his company, Joseph Bohmann's American Musical Industry. The name was created as a marketing ploy, like so many other Bohmann deeds. 

attached photo Bohmann catalog cover: 



Bohmann is also listed in and 1872 Chicago directory as a musical instrument maker. Bohmann's factory sat in mothballs for over 40 years in the inner loop area of Chicago, before a Bohmann grandson began to sell off factory effects piecemeal. The family had grown tired of paying taxes on the building. This Lost Factory Sale, as some people call it, took around ten or more years. Unfortunately, Bohmann's grandson allowed factory visitors to rifle the factory files at will. I know that some original factory records still existed in the files, as the oldest Bohmann factory post card I have is dated 1889. 

Unfortunately, this vast compilation of Bohmann files was fragmented and scattered around America. My small archive came from the estate of a man who was declared incompetent. Who knows what other small Bohmann document collections have already made it into a landfill somewhere? Such a documentary diaspora is a tragedy. 

Anyone who has some original factory documents, I would love to visit with you someday.  
Cheers!

hambonepicker, aka Bruce Hammond, near Alvin, Texas

----------

allenhopkins, 

brunello97

----------


## BrucePHammond

Sure would love to see a brace of photos after it gets restored.

----------


## ollaimh

lewis and clark looked for fort orleans but couldn't find it.  english sourcers say natives destroyed it and killed them, french sources say they pulled up stakes as the profit from the trade on the upper missouri wasn't good, and they could reach it from the existing red river settlements.  i have found that very very few american historians read french sources, or even know they exist. that's why i suggest eccles. a university of toronro historian who wrote widely in english from french sources.  he wrote a lot on early settlement history, great reads and he provides full footnotes to search from there. if that's your thing.

yeah very little of these forts survives, 

i also claim that maisoneuve,  the founder of montreal, had a mandolin in his ensemble and a lutheir. maisoneuve played lute and cittern.  what kind of cittern i never found.  his lute was standard late medieval/early renaisance, he was in montreal around 1650. but i did read once of his musical ensemble to while away the winter nights.  and one reference to his mandolin player.the first founders of acadia had a musical ensemble in 1604 at port royal in nova scotia.  they were called the order of good cheer.  their performances made lots of fans among the natives.  a few wrote their own music, so some of the first european music written in the americas.  one side of my family was in acadia by 1630.

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## BrucePHammond

> The article about Bohmann certainly has some weight given the fact that Clarence Partee wrote it. The problem is Bohmann never patented a mandolin design and as far as I know, there's no definitive proof that he started making mandolins in 1883. However, anything's possible.


Please see my post of May 16. Definitive proof that Bohmann made a mandolin in either 1882 or 1883 - depends on how you interpret the letter. I can email you a scan of the original handwritten letter if you wish

----------


## BrucePHammond

> I asked a few people,  in the French early music world. they had a lot of references for mandolin in ancient regime france, but nothing they could remember specifically saying anyone played one in new france. they believed it was played in new france, which doesn't prove made there but it would be a start.
> 
> they had the guitarre allemange and the lute. maisoneuve played the lute(the early governor of montreal) and his diary has an entry of having a local wood worker make him one--a small tenor lute.  not quite a mandolin.
> 
> i'll keep digging.  and try to post pictures of my guitarre allemange
> 
> my previous post disappeared btw


Please send photos when you find them. Thank you.

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## BrucePHammond

> I apologize for unintended redundancy. I had missed some earlier postings. Nevertheless, wanted to add that I did find Lyon & Healy advertisements in several Chicago directories (1870s) and some included mandolins, lutes, dulcimers etc. My question is this: I've read that Bohmann started something he called "Bohmann's American Industry in Chicago" in 1878 but I am having a hard time verifying that. I'd appreciate any help in pointing me to any written documentation. Thanks.


Please see my May 16-2019 post on this thread. It includes a scan of Bohmann's catalog front page, which states, "Established 1876." I am uncertain, but think the statement claiming Bohmann began making instruments in 1878 to be from Mugwumps, which was nearly entirely lacking on source attribution. Or it may have come from Michael Holmes, or another researcher, who dug out data Independently, and I imagine he has forgotten his source. At this point, it is hard to imagine what evidence would contradict Bohmann's stated date of 1876 - but it is also easy to imagine Bohmann fabricated this date to appear more "established" in the early days of his factory. 

Cheers!

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## BrucePHammond

> the one i have from circa 1760(according to several experts) was found in old fort st louis area , in a barn , near davenport iowa!!! so there!!! na na na na na na, but i can't say where it was actually built, he said sheepishly. still i say found near davenport, must have been made near davenport on the fur trading post!!!


Please post photos when you get it finished.

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## Mandophile

Bohmann did apply for patents and received a few. I don't have the count exactly--certainly not as many as Lyon & Healy but 
Bohmann was no fool. I suggest further study and search of the on-line patent office...not an easy thing to do. It's not just a matter of entering his name... ;-)  That said, a patent can't always confirm who was the earliest manufacturer.

----------


## BrucePHammond

> Bohmann did apply for patents and received a few. I don't have the count exactly--certainly not as many as Lyon & Healy but 
> Bohmann was no fool. I suggest further study and search of the on-line patent office...not an easy thing to do. It's not just a matter of entering his name... ;-)  That said, a patent can't always confirm who was the earliest manufacturer.


There have been statements that Bohmann received multiple patents under variant spellings of his name: Bowman, and maybe another variant. The problem with searching these early patents is they are not digitized in a way you can perform an adequate search for them. 

The Bohmann patents I have found occur in three different time periods, all bear the name "Bohmann." A friend found one of them for me. The first bunch of patents span a time range of being applied for Nov. 25, 1887 (granted Oct. 2, 1888) and being applied for Jun 24, 1889 (granted Dec. 8, 1891). These were for a violin frog/bow rehairing device, a violin chin rest, an arm rest only seen on mandolins, a single tuning head for musical instruments but probably used only on banjos, and a tuning peg for violins.

The second group patents all apply to Bohmann's modern era instruments, with convex body shapes when viewed from the side. These are archtop instruments featuring solid wood tops and backs that are not carved, but bent under great pressure across curved bracing, as documented in the patents. The specimens seen range in size from small mandolins, to small, medium, and large 6-string "Grand Concert Contra Bass Guitars (19" wide across lower bout), and harp guitars, ranging up to the size of the huge, ex-Chinery Bohmann harp guitar. This patent group spans a time range from being applied for Oct. 28, 1911 (granted Feb. 9,1915) and being applied for Jul. 27, 1914	(granted Apr. 18,1916). These patents are for his modern string instrument design, his auxiliary vibrators (aka internal metal bars), a patent on a second aspect of string instrument design, one for "tuning peg," which is really his modern headstock design, the patent drawing showing eight tuners, and a patent on a third aspect of string instrument design. 

The third group is not a group, but one patent. He applied for a Great Britain Patent for his violin chin rest on May 20, 1927; it was granted on Aug. 20, 1928, but Bohmann had already died. He thought about new ways to make money until the end. 

This makes 11 patents. There are only two other patents referenced in Bohmann's catalog, that we know of to search for: Patents applied for on banjo tailpiece (#11) (in 1895 and 1899 catalogs) and the patent guitar bridge (#12) (in the 1899 catalog). I would look for them in 1886-1888 patents, but I might be wrong. Also, I am not sure they exist.

That's about it. Have not had time to search for Bohmann patents lately. Too many other projects. And too many patents.

Twwwaaaannnngggggg!!!

Hambonepicker
Bruce Hammond
near Alvin, Texas

----------


## BrucePHammond

> Bohmann did apply for patents and received a few. I don't have the count exactly--certainly not as many as Lyon & Healy but 
> Bohmann was no fool. I suggest further study and search of the on-line patent office...not an easy thing to do. It's not just a matter of entering his name... ;-)  That said, a patent can't always confirm who was the earliest manufacturer.


There have been statements that Bohmann received multiple patents under variant spellings of his name: Bowman, and maybe another variant. The problem with searching these early patents is they are not digitized in a way you can perform an adequate search for them. 

The Bohmann patents I have found occur in three different time periods, all bear the name "Bohmann." A friend found one of them for me. The first bunch of patents span a time range of being applied for Nov. 25, 1887 (granted Oct. 2, 1888) and being applied for Jun 24, 1889 (granted Dec. 8, 1891). These were for a violin frog/bow rehairing device, a violin chin rest, an arm rest only seen on mandolins, a single tuning head for musical instruments but probably used only on banjos, and a tuning peg for violins.

The second group patents all apply to Bohmann's modern era instruments, with convex body shapes when viewed from the side. These are archtop instruments feature solid wood tops and backs that are not carve, but bent under great pressure across curved bracing, as documented in the patents. The specimens seen range in size from small mandolins, to small, medium, and large 6-string guitars, and harp guitars, ranging up to the size of the ex-Chinery Bohmann harp guitar. This patent group spans a time range from being applied for Oct. 28, 1911 (granted Feb. 9,1915) and being applied for Jul. 27, 1914	(granted Apr. 18,1916). These patents are for his modern string instrument design, 
his auxiliary vibrators (aka internal metal bars), a patent on a second aspect of string instrument design, one for "tuning peg," which is really his modern headstock design, the patent drawing showing eight tuners, and a patent on a third aspect of string instrument design. 

The third group is not a group, but one patent. He applied for a Great Britain Patent for his violin chin rest on May 20, 1927; it was granted on Aug. 20, 1928, but Bohmann had already died. He thought about new ways to make money until the end. 

This makes 11 patents. There are only two other patents referenced in Bohmann's catalog, that we know of to search for: Patents applied for on banjo tailpiece (#11) (in 1895 and 1899 catalogs) and the patent guitar bridge (#12) (in the 1899 catalog). I would look for them in 1886-1888 patents, but I might be wrong. Also, I am not sure they exist.

That's about it. Have not had time to search for Bohmann patents lately. 

Twwwaaaannnngggggg!!!

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## BrucePHammond

*Errata* 

As for my statements on Estudiantina Espanol de Figaro, aka The Spanish Students. Previously, I stated the Spanish Students performed in NYC on New Year's Day, 1880.

Paul Ruppa has since pointed out to me that The Spanish Students performed in nine other venues, starting on Jan. 2, 1880, before they performed in NYC, beginning a series of NYC concerts on Feb. 3, 1880. In their book, a Spanish publication, "La Estudiantina Española Fígaro en los EE.UU. Crónica de sus giras americanas y estela según la prensa de la época," Paul Ruppa and Dr. Sárraga, wrote extensively about the Spanish Students.

Copyright conventions prevent me from sharing any further information. Apologies for my errors. I believe that tradition holds The Spanish Students arrived in America on New Year's Day, 1880 - and I think that is correct, but don't quote me on that. 

Cheers!

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## Mando&Me

Wow, what a great history lesson. I love stuff like this. 

M&M

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## allenhopkins

Luthiers have been building instruments in Paracho, Mexico, reportedly since the 1700's.  Possibly could have made some mandolins...?  I'm not sure that's what we're looking for as an "American mandolin manufacturer" -- we may be thinking only of the US -- but Mexico's surely in North America.

----------

brunello97, 

Jim Garber, 

Mark Gunter

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## ollaimh

> Luthiers have been building instruments in Paracho, Mexico, reportedly since the 1700's.  Possibly could have made some mandolins...?  I'm not sure that's what we're looking for as an "American mandolin manufacturer" -- we may be thinking only of the US -- but Mexico's surely in North America.


i think most people here are only counting the usa, and only the incorporated states. no french or spanish need apply

----------

allenhopkins

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## Jim Garber

> i think most people here are only counting the usa, and only the incorporated states. no french or spanish need apply


Actually given the fact that the original Spanish students were, well, from Spain and actually played bandurrias, I think Allen’s argument is strongly valid.

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allenhopkins, 

DavidKOS

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## brunello97

> Actually given the fact that the original Spanish students were, well, from Spain and actually played bandurrias, I think Allen’s argument is strongly valid.


Leaving out French and Spanish North America doesn't leave much behind  :Wink: 

I've got a mandolin from Paracho and while most folks tend to pan these I find it to be a pretty dependable beater.  A hand-dipped finish that is tougher what is on my car. 

The tone may be a bit muddy but the intonation is dead on... which is _not_ something I can say about any number of older mandolins I've had cross my path.  :Frown: 

Nice little story on another product from Michoacan.  

Mick

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DavidKOS

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## Mandophile

I found THE Mr. Seville. Once I've reconciled some of the 'conflicting' posts and suggested timelines, I will reveal him in all his amazing splendor. Indeed! Bohmann attracted the extraordinary. As Bruce Hammond stated, we may still be stuck with a limited range between 1882-1885. That said, Bohmann was ahead of Lyon & Healy if a date can be authenticated. Unfortunately dendrochonology can't be applied to wooden mandolins...or can it?

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DavidKOS

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## Gan Ainm

"...Oliver Ditson hired a young man named John C. Haynes and made him a partner in 1857..."

Interesting- I have a simple system one keyed flute labeled "JC Haynes Boston" estimated to be around same period.  An "easy player" with good intonation and nice if softer sound, once the embouchure was redone by a pro. Actually I don't have it now- it is in Bhutan(!) with an anthropologist/conservationist friend for a year.  Adding my thanks to all the historians and researchers providing the erudite information.

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DavidKOS

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## Seter

I finished reading El Norte by the way, a good read all in all. No mention of mandolins in it though sadly.

----------

brunello97

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## Mandophile

I'm very very close to publishing my definitive history on the first American-made mandolin. I'm excited with a sense of trepidation! I think it will help future scholars to continue in the search for the first mandolin in America and the first mandolinist to play it. Stay tuned! I don't mean to be teasing but I just finished my penultimate draft and I'm happy to say that I'm really, really close to publishing it. I will make it available here and will provide a link where it can be downloaded.  Thanks for your support and I'd love to hear back from everyone about my investigation. Thanks!~

----------

August Watters, 

DavidKOS, 

Jacqke, 

Seter

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## Mandophile

:Mandosmiley:  :Mandosmiley:  :Mandosmiley: 

I'm pleased to announce my investigation about the first American-made mandolin.
Thanks to the enormous support from many friends and a tremendous amount of time and research, I'm ready to share it with the world.  See attached PDF

And to think this all came from an obscure music circular that Joseph Bohmann issued in 1896.  I look forward to hearing from you as to your thoughts.

Best to you all and Happy Halloween!  Sheri

----------

Craig D., 

DavidKOS, 

Jacqke, 

Seter

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## Mandophile

I'm so sorry but I uploaded the wrong file...in my haste.  Here's the final copy. as attached. Thank you!

- - - Updated - - -

see post #109 for correct final paper on Mr. Seville.

----------

August Watters, 

DavidKOS, 

EdHanrahan, 

Jacqke, 

Steve 2E

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## Mandophile

Curious if pfox was persuaded or not (about Seville)...

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## Mandophile

This morning I received an email from Algernon Seville's great grandson (from his second marriage). Evidently, this man's grandfather (mentioned in footnote 66) played mandolin and his mandolin is still in the family. I've asked to see a photograph and while I doubt it is the Bohmann mandolin that Seville purchased in or about 1883, it is still exciting news to know that Seville's enthusiasm extended into his children's lives.

Hmmm. I've uploaded the paper which includes the Glossop map. For some reason, the previous versions lacked it. So sorry. I think I get in too much of a rush. The 1884 map was quite useful in reconstructing the history of State Street, Chicago at a crucial time in the mandolin's early history.

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## Mandophile

I'm just thrilled to say that more information has arrived about Seville's role in early mandolin history. Thanks to "Ancestry" a connection was finally made with those descendants from Algernon Seville's second marriage. I'm happy to report I've been promised photos or scans of photos of the family's mandolins and those belonging to his son James. One is a Neapolitan Valetti but the other is unknown but we will find out the model etc. It is very possible we will see what Seville played and possibly the instrument he bought from Joseph Bohmann. 

Another quick note, when Seville moved to Memphis with his second wife in the early 1890s, he founded the "Seville Mandolin Orchestra" on Main Street.
So while I had serious doubts and could not independently verify Seville as the man who bought the mandolin from Bohmann, I can now state with certitude that this brilliant piano tuner/inventor was not only a pianola expert but "Mr. Seville" played mandolin and conducted his own orchestra.  BRAVO, Seville!

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## Mandophile

Thanks go out to Seville's descendants & family. Here are two images of a "Mayflower"... one of the mandolins that Seville's son James played.

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## ollaimh

i still maintain that this is the frist mandolin manufactured in the usa. and i'll trade it for the brooklyn bridge/

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## ollaimh

were pre 1800 bandurrias metal strung?  when did parachomandolins become metal strung?

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## Jim Garber

ollaimh, what is that? It doesn't look American to me or even from earlier than the 1880s. Or are you just kidding?

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## Bill Kammerzell

> I am curious if anyone knows the answer to this question. Most sources seem to indicate that the mandolin was introduced to America by Italian immigrants around the 1870s-80s. The earliest ads I could find date from 1894 for Lyon & Healey/Washburn, A.C. Fairbanks, Biehl & W.A. Cole. Was it L&H? Or somebody else?


I just saw this book at Reverb. Sold by Carter Guitars and written by Walter Carter. The Mandolin in America. 

https://reverb.com/item/4554872-the-...ter-not-signed

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## Mandophile

I believe that Lyon & Healy, Fairbanks and others were later--after Joseph Bohmann. Download my paper in post #111 to follow the suggested timeline for the contenders who vied for being known as the first manufacturer. In the original post, the question centers on identifying the first manufacturer, not the first mandolin that was "manu-made" or handmade. While this may be nitpicking, we all need to continue to investigate. Until I find evidence to the contrary, I firmly believe that Bohmann earned the honor and deserves to be known as the first manufacturer, albeit he was not turning out hundreds of mandolins in his first year (probably 1882 and early 1883).

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DavidKOS

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## Jim Garber

> I just saw this book at Reverb. Sold by Carter Guitars and written by Walter Carter. The Mandolin in America. 
> 
> https://reverb.com/item/4554872-the-...ter-not-signed


Yes, this book published in 2017 does not have any other information about earlier mandolins than was quoted by Paul Fox, the original poster for this thread.

----------

Bill Kammerzell, 

Mandophile

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## ollaimh

it's a guitarre allemand i found in a barn in iowa passing through and stopped at a lawn sale.  it has been dated by experts at 1760ish, give ot take. i do mean to have the dendrochronology lab in sasketchewan do a wood test some day just to congirm.  came from near the old french fort, old fort st louis which operated in the 1720s. it was neither profitable nor safe from native raids.  so they abandoned it,  rebuilt it for two more years then gave up.  the soldiers went down the the much larger french fort near st louis which had both mississippi trade in goods from the gulf and a lead and copper mine.  there was a tradition of the french officers plaing these instruments.  maisoneuve himself(credited with founding montreal) played this kind of cittern and lute and led an ensemble of musicians.  the french officers were mostly the younger sons of aristocrats.  they had excellent education, but no money so they came to new france to make their fortune.  some locals rose to officer status, most notably the last great governor vaudreaul.but most played early instruments of the day.

this one was in terrible shape except for the head stock, so i figured if the pegs work ok then the rest can be repaired.  it is now all repaired.  had to replace the back. waaay to many cracks and previous repairs.   according to adrien le roi these were tuned in four courses to an open A .  three bass strings with an over wound between two bare wire strings, and the top was two doubles.  they had a pre modern frett placement so they will sound odd to modern ears.  as does the old french lute frett placement.  (years ago i had a lute which came with templates for the different frett placements including the french set up.  made the major keys sound a little minor like and the minors eerie and a titch discordant.    so they were strummed with simple chords to accompany songs and fiddle tunes.  the workers(called les voyageurs ou les coureurs des bois) wouldn;t have had room in canoes to carry large instruments. they played pocket fiddles, whistles and flutes and jaw harps have been found at their camp sites, many many times.  an officer who could play to the jigs and reels of les voyageurs would be very popular.

it is certain there were instruments like these made in quebec by 1680 and within the borders of the future united states by 1700 as the french were setting up forts by then on makinac island, down to near chicago and up the rainy river to manitoba.  remember the verendrye brothers made it to the rockies in british columbia by 1685--take that lewis and clark.

so maybe the spanish had mandolins earlier but not much earlier and probably not withint the future continental united states.

if you are interested in the french in america.  e. j. eccles is an historian who is fluent in french and wrote histories using french sources, which most american historians don't use because they can't read french.  (the missionary priests keep very good records, most famous are the jesuit relations)  eccles general survey book:"france in america"  will give you good general history.

so it is possible this is one of the first mandolins in the future usa.  but the people i bought it from had no provanence. i found it poking around the barn. they didn't even know it was there.(or the wife din't know)  but the farm was a few miles from old fort st louis.(near davenport iowa)  the modern st louis was called fort des chartres.  the farming colony was near by.  there was a large native town which was allied to the french there as well.  

so prove me wrong!!!  

i finally got strings(period iron and brass strings. ) so it needs the bredge fitted after restringing and robierre c'est vos oncles.

----------

DavidKOS, 

Mandophile

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## Jim Garber

Ollaimh, very interesting. Can you post more photos? Also, it could easily be as old as you say but how do you prove that it was made in North America?

----------

Mandophile

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## btrott

Anyone interested in the history of the English Guitar might find this dissertation useful, _The Guitar in the British Isles, 1750-1810_. My impression from my study of the English guitar and mandolin in colonial America is that the instruments were manufactured in Europe and imported rather than being made here. 

Barry

----------

DavidKOS, 

Mark Gunter

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## Mandophile

excellent! Ollaimh! Yes, eventually, the French exported mandolins to Chicago so who knows how early that started but again, they weren't built here. I lived in Montréal and am well aware of how the culturally rich, shared border shaped the musical heritage. Please do the wood test! We all are dying to know!!

----------

DavidKOS

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## ollaimh

i can't rove this one was made n america. but it's a bill mahar thing.  "i don't know it for a fact but i just know it's true".

however i think there were mandolins and citterns made in new france,  provenance will be difficult to establish.

these are old pictures the back was replaced, but i kept the old back. and all braces glued etc. and now i have strings.  i had lutheir problems with this in toronto. i told the guy working on it not to put any finish on it.  he put some on. he said the usual:"I had to".  (how to make me apoplectic ),  he took most off.  he threw away the old peg aftoer i told him to save them.(therewere wire remnants on the pegs which gave hints as to the stringing)  , two experts dated it from the frett placement, the head stoke( a tielke or a copy thereof) and the rosette.  i have since seen one exactly like this with a label dating to 1752--france(ok ok mine might not be made in montreal). 
 but the new lutheir did it right and ready to string).

----------

DavidKOS

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## ollaimh

i supose if i ever get it to the dendrochronology lab he could tell if the woods were north american or european.  he can date from high resolution pictures, but he can't tell if it's north american spruce from pictures.  i was disappointed that the professor who runs that lab  was near me at mount allison university, but when i went down there he had just moved to the university of sasketchewan.  i have decided to sell this f i get a reasonable offer.   or i'd trade it for the brooklyn bridge

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## CarlM

ollaimh.  The Fort St. Louis connection is much more than highly doubtful.  The sight of Fort St. Louis is known.  It is over 100 miles east and on the other side of the Mississippi.  That is not nearby in wilderness times.  The site was excavated in 1949.  There are no surface remnants though some soil traces and relics were found in the excavation.  The time it was occupied was over 70 years earlier than your instruments date.  It was all log buildings and fairly rough living even by the standards of the time.  There is no native spruce anywhere with 300 miles.  The Iowa side was complete wilderness even in 1800 let alone 1760.  

The major French connection in the area you procured the mandolin is Antoine Leclaire who was one of the founders of the city of Davenport.  He was not born till 1797 and built there in 1833.  Julien Dubuque settled near the site of city of his name in 1788 but nothing remains of his settlements except some mine pits.  That is 70 miles north.  Your instrument came here much later than when it was built.

It is a cool instrument and great for its own sake.  That it was built in Illinois, let alone Iowa in 1760 is a dream.

----------

brunello97

----------


## ollaimh

you are ignoring feench sources and like most americans on this issue dead wrong.  if you want history that uses french sources start with e j eccles:"france in america".  i know of no american historian who has read the french sources.  the french sources show the letters back and forth from old fort st louis and the expidition orders, replies and the trade between old fort st louis and  montreal. i have even debated this with an american with a masters in history who worked at iowa parks and he was forced to admit hews wrong. this is a topic where american historians arr woefully inadequate, as they are with history of natives glossing over repeated massacres ofnon combatents.

----------


## ollaimh

every body quotes antoine leclair with no knowledge of the history.  the old fort st louis is called old fort st louis now because it was distinct from the later fort you talked about.  the old fort st louis was near davenport.  they thought they could trade up the missouri county.  they made very little money. the fur trade was on the noth and south sasketchewan rivers and not the missouri, and the lead copper and goods from the gulf went throiugh the illinois colony.  even wikepedia give the 1720s as the date of the french fort in iowa, although that's not a very good source.  again e.j. eccles is an historian fluent in french. unlike american settlements french ones were government ventures with priests who wrote fulsome diaries, and local adminstrators called intendants who wrote weekly reports to montreal. in addition they had a military commander, who also wrote weekly reports to montreal. most of these reports there are in fact more proofs of old fort st louis than of any american settlement in the area. or pretty much any area before 1800.

the trade failed to make a profit and the fort was burned twice by natives, so they gave up and joined the settlement at the illinois colony worse for was not called st louis it was called fort des chartres.  with three or four agricultural settlements, but the main settlement there was of natives.  they had a large settled population allied with the french.  btw i have a history degree in this area and passed the french translation exam for that history.  did you?

----------


## Jim Garber

> i can't rove this one was made n america. but it's a bill mahar thing.  "i don't know it for a fact but i just know it's true".


So, getting back to the question and premise of this thread...you have a hunch but as we used to say in New York (not Old York) that and a buck and a half will buy you a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, there is no way to 100% prove that this was made in North America. The most you can probably prove is that it is as old as you think it is and maybe get a some historical instrument expert to verify that was made by a maker who lived on this continent. Not so easy. 

Frankly, that far back in the pre-Anglo America I would assume that the people there would have little time to produce a fancy instrument but were more likely just trying to survive and this lovely instrument came up the river from some French transport and was traded to the good settlers of this area. 

And I would for you to prove me wrong.

----------

btrott

----------


## CarlM

> Frankly, that far back in the pre-Anglo America I would assume that the people there would have little time to produce a fancy instrument but were more likely just trying to survive and this lovely instrument came up the river from some French transport and was traded to the good settlers of this area.


Or was picked up by a serviceman in Europe at the end of WWII or during the 1950s or 1960s.  Or was picked by someone traveling in Europe just like it got to Canada now.

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btrott

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## Mandophile

re: Jim's comment about how "to produce a fancy instrument" and Carl's "little time" to produce:

I recall my upper division/grad courses in early American history, in particular an art history instructor made a strong point about the crudeness in portraiture, and that characteristic extended to early architectural contributions. The lack of knowledge was an issue and that ignorance was attributed to no one remembering to bring method (luthier?) books about how to paint or to construct objects; without "blue prints." Elementary designs were available in European source books but without access, even talented carpenters/artists/luthiers would have had to rely on guesses based on their faulty (?) memories. How does one build a mandolin with only a model at hand? or only by memory.  So...the simple answer...very few immigrants knew how to construct a musical instrument. Beyond that, where was the need? The mandolin was so rarely 'needed' in opera or the classical tradition (Vivaldi, Mozart and later, only occasionally other composers like Verdi).

Once the post Civil War period began, a greater number of (mostly) Italian violinists-mandolinists like Philadelphia's G.B. De Stefano, or entrepreneur Luigi Arditi, and Bohemian luthier Joseph Bohmann became pioneers for the mandolin. Even when an Italian or French imported model could be closely examined, it required a talented luthier like Chicago's Bohmann who performed repairs for the Italian mandolinists in the early 1880s but we still don't know what his first mandolin looked like. Did he copy the Neapolitan model? possibly but we should remain openminded about all possibilities.

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Mark Gunter

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## chuck3

What a great thread!  I can't believe I'm only seeing it now.  I love both American history and musical instruments of all kinds, and this thread combines those interests.  Thanks to all of you who have posted - keep it going!

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Mandophile

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## brunello97

> re: Jim's comment about how "to produce a fancy instrument" and Carl's "little time" to produce:
> 
> ......we still don't know what his first mandolin looked like. Did he copy the Neapolitan model? possibly but _we should remain openminded about all possibilities._


This makes certain sense, of course, Sheri in light of this conversation. But it also reminds me of the "It might be a Larson!" jive we deal with so often here. 
You do your homework, trace your first person accounts, double check your sources.  When you make a presumption it is backed up by hard work.

But that is a far cry from a position of
"I think this is so because I think this is so and I dare you to prove me wrong!" which is where Mr. Oolamih is coming from.  
And the "No American history writer reads French!" bs.  That kind of arrogant nonsense doesn't have any place in a thoughtful conversation here.

I'm sorry I wandered in on this.  Jim and Sheri and many others here are careful thinkers, readers and do their homework, so I thought I'd check out what this conversation was about.   My bad.

The chances of that thing being made in what is now Illinois, Iowa, Missouri are slim and none.  
Like Guillaume Le Mar said "Je ne le sais pas pour un fait mais je sais juste que c'est vrai".

But _could_ be a Larson.

Mick

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CarlM, 

Mandophile

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## allenhopkins

> ...But it also reminds me of the "It might be a Larson!" jive we deal with so often here....But [it] _could_ be a Larson...


Hey!  As Curly said:

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## Graham McDonald

Having another look at the detailed pics of the guittar from Davenport, it looks very much like an instrument that came out of one of the guittar makers in Britain or the French makers acrossr the Channel around Calais or Dunkirk. There is an attention to detail in the shape of the pegbox and carving of the animal head which says this was made by a professional builder who made these all the time, rather than someone at an outpost of empire in the second half of the 18th century. 

I suggest to ollaimh that he/she? get in contact with Panagiotis Poulopoulos at the Deutsches Museum. He would seem to have done the most research on guittars in recent years and his PhD thesis was on the English Guittar.


Cheers

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Jim Garber

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## btrott

Good suggestion, Graham. If folks are interested in reading that dissertation, which is quite useful, the link is above in message #122.

Best,

Barry

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## Graham McDonald

My apologies Barry. I had forgotten that you had already suggested that important reference. I would think if anyone could give an expert opinion on the origin of the Davenport guittar it would be Panagiotis Poulopoulos.

Cheers

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btrott

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## btrott

No worries, Graham, I just wanted to make sure folks had the link! 

Best,

Barry

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## Mandophile

a citation from my paper on Mr. Seville's role in bringing the mandolin to America:
   Editors, Daniell & Abbot, O.K. Houcks Progressive Benevolent Violin Auction. Presto, No.1763, 8 May 1920, p. 18. Seville imported wood from timbers used in a 150-year old French house in or about 1906. 
    I'm not implying anything as to what wood might or might not have been used on Mr. Ollaimh's "mandolin" but I am suggesting that if Mr. Seville went to the trouble of ordering old timbers to build a violin in Memphis, TN that we should remain open to how/where/when the "first" mandolin was built in North America.

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## CarlM

There is a historical story from the Davenport, Iowa area which illustrates the limits of open mindedness and when a person has stepped over into the realm of nonsense.  During the 19th century there was a lot of speculation around the Native American earthworks and mounds in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys.  Part of the city of Davenport was built over a substantial grouping of these mounds.  A local preacher became quite obsessed with the idea that these were built by Europeans or the Lost Tribes of Israel because obviously primitive savages could not have built them.  A few of his acquaintances got tired of his nonsense.  So they fabricated some inscribed and engraved tablets with Hebrew and other script and planted them where he had been excavating.  These tablets became a nationally known sensation.  The head of the U.S. Bureau of Ethnology declared they were fakes.  Controversy ensued.  Finally someone confessed to the joke.  The local museum and historical society, which was fairly prominent at the time, was immensely embarrassed and took years to recover.

There is a point where open mindedness becomes simply naive.  Making assertions that fly in the face of accepted history without extraordinary evidence is simply bluster.  No one is denying French presence in the early exploration and settlement.  However it was still wilderness.  And stating no one at the state universities or historical society is aware of a major settlement because they have never read French sources is insulting nonsense.

One other note, the other Fort St. Louis to which he refers, was located at what is now Starved Rock State Park in Illinois.  It was on a bluff over the Illinois River over 100 miles to the east.  And it was not a civilized town in any sense, just a few log building with a palisade wall.  The biggest building was the powder magazine.  It was excavated in 1949.  This confused me about his original post.  It is  not anywhere near Davenport except in comparison to Canada.  The site is well known to historians and archaeologists in the area.  The dates they give are 1691 at the latest which does not fit his timeline either.

http://www.fakearchaeology.wiki/inde...enport_Tablets

https://www2.illinois.gov/dnr/Parks/...20brochure.pdf

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brunello97, 

Mandophile

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## brunello97

Thanks, CarlM....Great links. 
The 'fake tablet' story sure has a lot of parallels to this story of the "barn find ur-mandolin", but inverted as to the claimed source.  
Our Mr. Oolmiah and the Rev. Gass  (or maybe better known as "Reverend _Gas_") seem to have a lot in common.

Mr. Seville imported old wood from France was ~300 years after the Forts St. Louis-es in discussion.  That's an eternity on the frontier.  Steamboats (or railways) coming up from New Orleans or down from Chicago, etc.  Lyon and Healy, of course, was importing rosewood logs from Brazil as well at that time so that kind of shipping was pretty well established.  The Robber Barons were importing _whole buildings_ from Europe to set up on their estates or inside their mansions.

Bohmann seems pretty well in the clear.  For now.  :Wink:   We haven't _conclusively_ eliminated the Larsons on this one yet.....

Mick

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## btrott

I think that the thing that occurs to me is that an English Guitar is not really an "ur-mandolin," and even if one was made here in North America at some point that is not the same as a mandolin being made here. They were two very distinct instruments and both were certainly known in English North America by the 1760s. 

"The earliest reference to mandolin in the English colonies comes in 1769, when an advertisement appeared in the Pennsylvania newspapers that John Gualdo had a shop where he sold musical instruments, "adapted and composed music for every kind of instrument," kept a servant who would copy music to order, and would teach ladies and gentlemen to play violin, German flute, guitar, and mandolin (Sonneck 1949, 70). Gualdo had come to Philadelphia in 1767 as a "Wine Merchant from Italy, but late from London," and advertised that he had opened a store in Walnut Street." from a 1997 article I wrote for Mandolin Quarterly

Poulopoulos notes in the dissertation referenced above:

In New York, as already mentioned, the German-born Jacob Tripell in 1764 advertised that he "makes and repairs […] English and Spanish Guittars […] at reasonable rates, as neat as in Europe, having work’t at the business nine years, with the best hands in London since I left Germany."

In my research into the mandolin in colonial America, I have not located any builders among the references to players and teachers. 

Barry

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Mandophile, 

Mark Gunter

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## Mandophile

Barry's reference to Gualdo is important to the discussion. If I recall from my own investigations, this early mandolin teacher/performer died quite young in an insane asylum. We mustn't read too much into that but a fact to consider.  :Mandosmiley:   I'd like to add that without "pattern books" or some sort of access to designs on how to build a <fill in the blank>, Colonial America was on its own trying to figure it out. I think it just made sense (practical/economical) to import what was available from European builders.

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btrott

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## btrott

Sadly, Gualdo suffered some sort of misfortune, for Francis Hopkinson, prominent Philadelphia musician and composer, wrote to a friend on October 17, 1771 that "Sigr. Gualdo lies in Chains in one of the Cells of the Pennsylva. Hospital" (Sonneck 1949, 74). It is assumed that he died there not long after. There is some question if the misfortune was a fall from a horse or a house. The record is unclear.

And Mandophile's point about the economics of instrument acquisition in colonial North America is also accurate. For the most part, it would not have been as practical from a cost perspective to make instruments here in North America as to import them in the 1700s

Barry

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Mandophile

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## Graham McDonald

Barry's point about a guittar not really being a mandolin is pertinent. I would argue that citterns (which is what a guittar is) diverged from what became mandolins two or three hundred years previously. in 1760 the Neapolitan mandolin was just emerging out of the Vinaccia workshop in Naples and the predominant gut strung mandolin was more or less a small lute which had quite a different evolutionary path from citterns.

Organological angels dancing perhaps 8-)

Cheers

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brunello97, 

btrott

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## brunello97

> in 1760 the Neapolitan mandolin was just emerging out of the Vinaccia workshop in Naples and the predominant gut strung mandolin was more or less a small lute which had quite a different evolutionary path from citterns.
> 
> Cheers


Thanks, Graham.  This is fundamental to resetting the wayward diversion of this entire conversation.  My own comment referring to an "ur-mandolin" was only a nod to the weirdosity propagated by our own Reverend Gas.  No one should confuse the Iowan specimen as a mandolin ur or urtherwise.

Mick

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btrott, 

Mandophile

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## btrott

Hi, Mick, This is what I was trying to say, only stated more clearly! 

Just because an instrument is a plucked, wirestrung chordophone does not make it a mandolin. English guitar is a lovely instrument (I have and play one from the 1770s), ut even if some were made here in North America as Poulopoulos notes that does not mean that this is the first case of mandolins being made here. 

Best,

Barry

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brunello97, 

Mandophile

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## Mandophile

The smile on my face this Monday is derived from the intelligence, illumination and sense of humor shed on this thread as to the origin and/or original "ur" mandolin. Not to be confused with oranges as expressed by the ignorant.  :Wink:   Perhaps another way to express it: the medieval-born guitar ("chitarra or cittern") is not the "inner mandolin" but the "u'ud" or lute represent the forerunners. Perhaps we should be looking to Arabic "Spain" for earlier signs and answers. Not that the French or Italians weren't manufacturing but I believe they, too, were copycats. And darn good ones! 

Stay safe, everyone!

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brunello97, 

btrott, 

DavidKOS

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## Bill Kammerzell

This thread got me charged up enough th buy Walter Carter's History of the Mandolin in America book.

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## Mark Gunter

> "The earliest reference to mandolin in the English colonies comes in 1769, when an advertisement appeared in the Pennsylvania newspapers that John Gualdo had a shop where he sold musical instruments, "adapted and composed music for every kind of instrument," kept a servant who would copy music to order, and would teach ladies and gentlemen to play violin, German flute, guitar, and mandolin (Sonneck 1949, 70).


Do you think "menteline" = "mandolin" in this advertisement of 1764?

In _The New York Gazette_, November 12, 1764 (and again on August 3, 1767), instrument maker Jacob Trippell announces that he "makes all sorts of Violins, Base and Tenor Viols, Loutens, Mentelines, Mandores and Welsh Harps, at reasonable rates,  as neat as in Europe, having work't at the business nine years, with the best hands in London since I left Germany."

_Citterns and Guitars in Colonial America_, Doc Rossi, 2002

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## Mandophile

Typographical errors abound, then add in that Noah Webster's standardized spelling is still decades away. I would think that "mandores" might be much closer to the Italian "mandorla" which refers to the almond shape that gave the mandolin its name. (mentioned in passing in "Mandolins, Like Salami" book.) I look forward to hearing other opinions.

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## Mark Gunter

> Typographical errors abound, then add in that Noah Webster's standardized spelling is still decades away. I would think that "mandores" might be much closer to the Italian "mandorla" which refers to the almond shape that gave the mandolin its name. (mentioneds in passing in my "Mandolins, Like Salami" book.) I look forward to hearing other opinions.


Very interested in hearing opinions on this. I understand the nuances of early typography and spelling variations much better than I do mandolin history. I think "menteline" could easily be the same as "mandoline" but don't have the expertise to know. I would also be interested in opinions on what a "menteline" might be, if not a mandolin?

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## Mark Gunter

Thanks for mentioning your _Mandolins Like Salami,_ Sheri, I found a copy at academia.edu and will read it with interest!

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DavidKOS

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## Mandophile

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bp...ne%20mandoline
  this link should take you to p. 97. One might presume from this entry that these two terms are synonymous.

I must add this: it's been fifteen years since I joined MandolinCafe. I love how Scott Tichenor administers the website and I love all the wonderful posts. I learn so much from everyone. Thank you for being a part of this great community!

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Mark Gunter

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## Mark Gunter

Thank you for that! It was my presumption from the first, and that entry strengthens it. If we assume that we are correct, it pushes back the first mention of mandolins in the New World a few years. Of particular interest to me is that Mr. Trippell is advertising the ability to build these instruments in the colonies, over a minimum 3 year span. Too bad we dont know what they may have actually been like, if any were actually built.

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Mandophile

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## Mark Gunter

I have read the thread again, and there appears to be a prevailing assumption on the part of the experts here that an instrument of fine workmanship, or an instrument that exhibits qualities of _e.g. European workmanship_, could not have been built in the colonies in the 18th century. I can understand caution due to lack of solid evidence, but I believe they assume too much. Colonization began in force in the early 17th century. My Gunter ancestor migrated in 1623 and worked as a surveyor. These folk were not primitives, and they imported technology as well as flesh and bone. Printing presses were rolling here in the early 18th century.

I think: It is one thing to withhold judgment due to a lack of evidence, and quite another to assume that no 18th century immigrant had the skill and motivation to fabricate a fine instrument, or to give it European characteristics. If I were to make an assumption lacking evidence, it would be to the contrary on both accounts.

I’m offering that simply as an honest opinion, and no disrespect to the scholars who have given us so much enlightenment on other aspects of the topic.

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DavidKOS

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## Mark Gunter

> Typographical errors abound ...


I inadvertently introduced a copyist error myself (as I was unable to cut and paste from the text I have) in my previous post #150, where I ommitted reference to the "English and Spanish Guittars" ... Correcting it here for accuracy. The full excerpt from Rossi reads like this:




> On 12 November 1764, and again on
> 3 August 1767, instrument maker Jacob Trippell announced that he “makes and
> repairs all sorts of Violins, Base [sic] and Tenor Viols, English and Spanish Guittars
> [sic], Loutens, Mentelines, Mandores and Welsh Harps, at reasonable rates, as neat as
> in Europe, having work’t at the business nine years, with the best hands in London
> since I left Germany.”


Barry Trott in post #142 offers a partial quote of this ad taken from Poulopoulos' dissertation; Poulopoulos credits Rossi 2004 with the quote. The ellipses were used presumably because both Rossi and Poulopoulos are most interested in guittars. The entire ad copy as shown above are taken from Rossi's 2002 paper I linked to in post #150.

In his footnote#345 p. 213, Poulopoulos writes that "a guittar by Tripell made in London and dated 1761 survives in the Gemeentemuseum, Hague." It would be interesting to see photos of that instrument.

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