LEADING MANUFACTURERS AND MERCHANTS CITY OF BROOKLYN
F. G. SMITH
The "Bradbury" Piano Factory
corner Raymond and Willoughby Streets.-
Few men are better known in the piano trade than the gentleman whose portrait
appears above. Mr. Smith offers a remarkable example of what native intelligence,
business tact, and an abundance of pluck will do for a man.
Beginning "at the bench" in the original "Bradbury" factory, Mr. Smith, by slow
steps, worked his way to the position of confidential adviser of the house, and
at the death of Mr. Bradbury found himself the sole director of the rapidly
growing establishment. Mr. Smith tells of his early struggles and with pardonable
pride recites the trials which beset his footsteps in his early triumph.
To-day he stands among the most substantial in the trade and his name is known
wherever music is a delight. His business embraces stores in several large cities,
in addition to his factory in Brooklyn and his case manufactory in Leominster, Mass.
All in all, Mr. F. G. Smith is a genial gentleman arid a handsome specimen of the
self-made American. He has been the architect of his handsome fortune, and may he
continue to build liberally upon the princely foundation already laid. One by one
the fine arts and manufactures of Europe are being perfected here. Step by step we
have gone on in the good work of emancipating this great Republic from its thralldoms
to despotic Europe. First, we asserted political independence, next came emancipation
in art, science, invention, and commerce. Sonic few years ago an American firm made
a breach in the wall of dependence which Europe had built around us.
They began to snake piano-fortes from American materials for the American market.
It was a bold movement, but this was nothing unusual, for things American are generally
bold. Our forefathers left the weary treadmills of the "Old World" behind them when
they plucked up their family trees from the worn-out soil of their ancestors and
transplanted them into a new and more congenial clime. All the best American
productions have been the outgrowth of daring, and those which seemed most hazardous
at the start have proved the best in the end.
Thus has it been with the manufacture of the "Bradbury piano," an undertaking which,
though seemingly chimerical in the beginning, has resulted in a lasting benefit to
both the public and the manufacturer, and we find to-day that not only the American
markets are supplied with these superior instruments, but that they are sent to every
civilized quarter of the globe. When Mr. Bradbury, the eminent composer of music, had
perfected his celebrated piano, it took precedence over those of all other makers in
the refined musical circles of both hemispheres. In the hands of a skillful performer
it is capable of producing such wonderful combinations of sound, of holding such perfect
control over the human passions, stirring the soul so grandly, soothing the troubled
spirit into such deep tranquility, that it is sought for and has become popular everywhere.
Mr. Bradbury has been gathered to his fathers, and the legacy of this great business
has passed under the guardianship of Mr. F. G. Smith. Mr. Smith was the master mechanic,
the presiding genius who supervised the construction of every instrument manufactured
by the late Mr. Bradbury. He has devoted his entire life to the practical details of
the piano in its artistic mechanism in the most extensive manufactures in the country.
Gifted with all the enthusiasm and genius requisite to the successful creation of a
perfectly constructed piano, and possessing the keenest practical experience, we see in
Mr. Smith a fair illustration of the thoroughly educated mechanic, a master of the whole
science, who is determined to lift it up into an art and bear himself aloft with it.
Probably no man of his years has acquired a more complete knowledge of his business, as
he has superintended every detail of it himself, and his remarkable success speaks the
just appreciation which a discriminating public manifests far a man of wide intelligence,
unwearied application, and artistic genius. It was fitting that when Mr. Bradbury had
perfected his many improvements he should give the benefit of them to the world. The
tributes which were paid to him from every country must have fallen sweetly upon his ear.
The factories where all the finer branches of the piano are adjusted are situated on the
corner of Raymond and Willoughby streets. The two factories are substantial brick buildings
five stories high, with a frontage of 125 feet on Raymond Street and 110 foot on
Willoughby street, with a light and air shaft fourteen foot wide between. The several
floors have an available working area of over eighty thousand square feet and a steam
elevator running to the height of the buildings. The entire fourth and fifth floors are
used exclusively for rubbing and varnishing the eases when they are first received from
the case manufactory. On the third floor is the sounding-board department, where the
sounding-board (the soul of the piano), with its bridges and iron frame, are carefully
adjusted to the case. Here also the stringing of the piano with steel and covered strings
is completed. On the second floor are the superintendent's office and the stock room,
where the keys, hardware, actions, and other constituent parts required in the construction
of a first-class piano are examined and given out to the workmen. On this floor are also
the finishing, fly-finishing, action, tone-regulating rooms, and repair department. On the
first floor. are tire spacious offices and three elegant warerooms, one for upright pianos,
one for square pianos, and one for secondhand pianos of almost all well-known makers.
In the basement are the boilers and engine rooms, also an engine of seventy-horse power.
It contains also apartments for ornamental carving and the necessary facilities for packing
and shipping.
From four hundred to five hundred pianos are constantly in process of construction,
requiring a capital of over $500,000.
Dr. Talmage writes: "All my family, except myself, play on Bradbury piano-fortes, and if
I find one of the instruments in heaven (and why not? they have trumpets there, I shall
have to learn to play on one of them myself. Bradbury is there, and you are going, and
I don't know what either of you would do without a piano to amuse yourselves with. I
should have no faith in the sense or religion of a person who does not like the Bradbury.
It is the pet of our household. It occupies but a small space in our room, but fills the
whole house with music. It is adapted to morning prayers or the gayest parties that ever
shook my parlors. F. G. Smith, the maker, is a Methodist, but his Bradbury pianos are
all orthodox. You ought to hear mine talk and sing."
With Special Thanks to: Cathy Harrison Speciale
Transcribed exclusively for the Brooklyn Genealogical Information Pages: Nancy E. Lutz
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