Some Notes on the William Knabe & Company Square Grand Piano

In 2015, film producers turned the main house at the Bellamy Museum site into a setting for what would eventually become the 2019 movie Bolden. The movie was about New Orleans cornet player Buddy Bolden (1877-1931), who became a key figure in the birth of jazz in the early twentieth century. Before any action could take place, however, the formal parlors were rearranged to suit the film company’s needs, and that meant moving the original, and rather large, Knabe square grand piano. To move it properly and carefully, Site Manager Bob Lock all but disassembled the piano and removed the case from the legs.

On top of leg number 4, Bob located the piano’s serial number. The leg is just one place makers put the serial number signifying the year that the piano was made. On grand pianos, the serial number can often be located on the soundboard or under the logo. On upright pianos, the serial number is often stamped on the piano's frame in line with the middle octave.

The Antique Piano Shop in Friendsville, Tennessee, helped determine the piano was manufactured in 1854 by looking up the serial number in The Pierce Piano Atlas. ​

In 1839, William Knabe (born Valentin Wilhelm Ludwig Knabe in 1803 in present day Germany) and William Gaehle formed the piano manufacturing firm of Knabe & Gaehle in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1854, Knabe took control of the business and changed the name to William Knabe & Company. The first pianos were manufactured in November 1854, making the square grand at the Bellamy Mansion Museum one of the first produced by the company. There is no bill of sale or easy way to determine when John and Eliza Bellamy actually purchased the piano, and the square grand was often a combination of a custom case sat atop pre-manufactured legs chosen by the buyer.

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Square grands were the piano of choice for nearly 150 years, and in mid-19th century America could easily cost upwards of $800.00. This was a sizable sum considering an average home could be purchased for the same amount of money. By the late 1880s, a shift to the upright piano was taking place. The square grand just took up too much space in more modest homes and eventually became obsolete. Sadly, many were literally chopped up for firewood.

​In the twentieth century, William Knabe & Company was purchased by other musical instrument makers, and today the Knabe piano headquarters is in South Korea. 

​The most famous Knabe piano, Francis Scott Key's square grand, is in the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, TN. The Knabe piano is reputed to produce tones closest to those produced by the human voice. It was the official piano of the New York Metropolitan Opera for decades and is still the official piano brand of the American Ballet Theatre.

Article by Wade Toth, Bellamy Mansion Museum Volunteer Coordinator and Leslie Randle-Morton, Bellamy Mansion Museum Associate Director.