Hammered Dulcimer Trivia: Did you know?
- Alexander Hamilton (not the statesman), playing the cello, accompanied the hammered dulcimer on November 21, 1752 at The Tuesday Club in Annapolis, MD.
- The earliest record of a hammered dulcimer in America is from May 23, 1717 in Medford, Mass. where it was played in the home of the Rev. Aaron Porter, a graduate
of Harvard College.
- The first professional hammered dulcimer player (unnamed) mentioned in American history was promoted by one Richard Brickell in 1752 in New York.
- The word "dulcimer" was often spelled dulcimore, dulcemer, dolsemor.
- The oldest hammered dulcimer now existing in America may only date to 1800, and was probably made in Seneca, New York.
- Sometime in the 1830s or '40s, hammered dulcimer-maker Richard Vernon of Stokes County, North Carolina once shipped 75 dulcimers to New Orleans on a flatboat down
the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
- Early American hammered dulcimers were often rectangular.
- The earliest recorded value of a hammered dulcimer (1844) may have only been $1.00! It was part of the estate of one William Moon, Madison County, Alabama.
- The tuning pins of early hammered dulcimers were hand-forged.
- The first instruction book for the hammered dulcimer was published in 1848 by C. Haight under the title Complete System for the Dulcimer.
- In the Great Lakes Region the hammered dulcimer was sometimes called the "lumberjack's piano"!
- Montgomery Ward, in his 1894-1895 catalog, sold hammered dulcimers. Sears and Roebuck followed in 1897 and sold them for $24.90!
- Early hammered dulcimer soundboards were often made of common woods like pine or hemlock.
- Common configurations for 19-century hammered dulcimers were 9/0, 10/7, 11/6, 11/7, 12/3, and 12/11.
- 19th-century hammers typically had whalebone shafts.
- Among the earliest recording of any variety of American vernacular music is that of the hammered dulcimer! Performed by Roy Gibson at the Edison studio in 1910.
- A hammered dulcimer was part of Henry Ford's orchestra in 1925!
(All trivia information was gleaned from Paul M. Gifford's book, The Hammered Dulcimer: A History, published by The Scarecrow Press, Inc.,
2001.)
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