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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
The Career of Kimball.
SKETCH OF THE FAMOUS CHICAGO MILLION-
AIRE PIANO MAKER—SOME SIDE-LIGHTS
UPON THE CHARACTER OF A FAM-
OUS MEMBER OF THE INDUSTRY.
The old Pine tree state has produced
some famous men in politics, science and
industry. Among her noted sons stands
W. W. Kimball and in a recent issue of
the Journal, Lewiston, Me., appears a
sketch of the famous manufacturer.
William Wallace Kimball, founder of
the piano and organ-making industries of
Chicago, and illustrious in national mercan-
tile annals as the pioneer of the wholesale
music trade of the Northwest, was born in
1828 in Oxford county, Me. This was also
the birthplace of his father, David Kimball,
and the ancestral abode since the close of the
Revolutionary war. Through the chronicles
of early New England, the direct line of
ancestry of the Kimball family on Amer-
ican soil, is traced back through some
twelve generations to Richard Kimball, of
Ipswich, Mass., who immigrated from Ips-
wich, England, and settled in that colonial
village in 1634. The family name, thus
associated with the antiquities of the na-
tion, is frequently encountered in the in-
troductory chapters of our country's his-
tory, coming to eminence in peace and war
alike, during all the earlier stages of
colonial development, and through the
subsequent era of rapid political transition,
ending in the establishment of our present
republican government.
Among the many soldiers of the fam-
ily entering the great war for indepen-
dence, from New Hampshire, and of
whom history makes honorable mention,
is found the name of Moses, grandfather
of William W. and father of David Kim-
ball, who in turn served with equal dis-
tinction through the war of 1812. The
soldier of the Revolution, at the close of
that struggle, became a farmer, removed
to Maine and settled in Oxford county,
which, two hundred years subsequent to
the time of Richard the Pilgrim, of Ips-
wich, became the birthplace of W. W.
Kimball. At the age of eighteen, with
such educational advantages as were af-
forded by the district and high schools
of his native county, young Kimball en-
gaged for a time in store clerking, and
afterward, in teaching. The bent of his
inclination was strongly in the direction
of commerce, however, and proceeding to
Boston at once upon attaining his ma-
jority, he secured mercantile employment,
and soon became a traveler, doing business
first in New England and afterward in
the Middle, Southern and Western states.
In 1857 Mr. Kimball visited Chicago,
then a frontier city in a comparatively iso-
lated region.
Finding something con-
genial to his own temperament in the whirl
of its traffic and in the vitality of its enter-
prise, he decided to locate permanently in
the place, and in the fall of the same year
commenced business as a dealer in pianos
and organs. There was apparently at that
time little to tempt business enterprise to
enter the musical field. There was no art
sentiment in the Northwest. What the
settlers wanted was lumber, tools, hard-
ware and groceries. There was no call
for musical instruments, and for a man
in those days to see the great future
prosperity in the piano trade he had to
be somewhat long-headed. The young
merchant seemed to realize the necessity
of patient waiting, and so rested content
with a local retail trade, in the belief that
the growing requirements of the country
would in time call for the establishment of
a wide agency system and wholesale traffic
connections, with the larger opportunities
thus implied. Nor did he miscalculate.
In 1864 the wholesale trade in pianos had,
through his individual efforts, been estab-
lished for the first time in Chicago, and the
development of traffic became such as to
justify his removal to the famous Crosby
Opera House on Washington street. Here
he opened fine warerooms, which became
the center of the polite trade of the North-
west till the general conflagration of 1871.
From newspaper records of the period,
it appears that W. W. Kimball, within
forty-eight hours after the subsidence
of that historic fire, had converted his
private residence on Michigan avenue in-
to a musical warehouse, with the bil-
liard room for an office and the barn for
a shipping department. The floorage,
however, proving quite inadequate for
his business, a removal was made to
larger quarters, at the northwest corner
of Wabash avenue and Thirteenth street,
which served his purpose till the sum-
mer of 1873, when he took possession of
the commodious building at the south-
east corner of State and Adams streets,
in the rebuilt district. Here, in 1882, the
business was reorganized under the cor-
porate name of W. W. Kimball Company,
and the growth of trade, including the ex-
tension of the manufacturing industry, led,
a few years later, to the occupancy of the
mammoth structure at the southeast corner
of State and Jackson streets. In the spring
of 1891 the final removal was made to the
stately, new edifice 147-157 Wabash avenue,
which is elaborately planned and constructed
for the perfect accommodation of all the
different departments of a business that
has now come to be represented by a thou-
sand branches, and to cover all the wide
territory tributary to Chicago.
W. W. Kimball is not only a man of
quick, comprehensive and commanding
intellect, but of a cheerful natural vi-
tality and humor that convert the great-
est labors into an invigorating pastime.
He enjoys vigorous competition for its
constant brisk encounter of schemes,
tactics, policies and plots—as a trial of
the wit and strength of men—and likes
the big chess-board of commerce, not
merely for the stakes, but for the anima-
tion of the mighty game. He is fond of
the drama, of lively society, and of polite
club life. But, while classed among the
millionaires of Chicago, and known as one
of the original prompters of many of its
public institutions, to possess great wealth
has never been the quickening principle
of his ambition. Another characteristic is
his fondness for reading men and charac-
ter. A happy faculty of interpreting the
traits and peculiarities of strangers, with
the quickness of intuition and with an
almost infallible accuracy has been one
main secret of his success in mercantile
life.
His career has been equally marked,
also, by a standard of commercial in-
tegrity, that has made his house one of
the shining names of the West. During
all the unpropitious conditions of war,
fire, panic, industrial depression and po-
litical turbulence, coming in successive
blasts of calamity and danger from 1857
to 1892, there never was a time when he
failed to maintain an even balance with
the world, and to meet all obligations
in full. Still another characteristic has
been his appreciative and considerate
fidelity to employees. Many of those who
began with him at the commencement of
his career are still in his service. Others
who have branched out for themselves
have received his assistance and encourage-
ment to assured prosperity. In return,
his aids and subordinates—the rank and
file of his clerical and working force—have,
individually and as a body, shown a loyal-
ty to their chief, worthy of true soldiers to
a general, who has led them through the
campaigns of more than thirty years.
Mr. Kimball was married in 1865 to Miss
Evalyne M. Cone, daughter of Hubbell B.
Cone, of Chicago. He has no children, but
the benefit of his financial resources is gen-
erously bestowed on the children of his
Eastern relatives, in whom he takes much
interest.
Although his business interests have
been largely in the West the ties of
friendship which have bound him to his
early home have never been broken and
he often visits Rumford and his rela-
tives, nearly all of whom are living in
that town. His birthplace and old home
is situated in a picturesque spot among
the hills of Rumford, about three miles
from the junction of the Androscoggin and
Ellis rivers. The farm is occupied by his
brother, Mr. Virgil D. Kimball. Mr.
Kimball has spent much money in improv-
ing the buildings and grounds upon the
old place.
The town of Rumford is pretty well
stocked with pianos and organs of the
Kimball stamp, many of them the result
of his generosity. During the past few
years he has given organs to several of the
churches and halls of the town.
Mr. and Mrs. Kimball have been spend-
ing the summer at a summer home in
Beverly Farms, Mass.
Dealer's Death.
Lerton D. Moses, a prominent music
dealer of Northfield, Minn., died Aug. 10.
Accompanied by his family he was spend-
ing his vacation at Treacy, Minn., and was
taken with typhoid fever. The case was
apparently progressing favorably, when he
was taken worse and died very suddenly.