Hilborne Lewis Roosevelt was a member of the Roosevelt family, a cousin of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, a pioneering organ builder and telecommunication engineer
Background
Hilborne Lewis Roosevelt, a first cousin of Theodore Roosevelt and the son of Silas Weir and Mary (West) Roosevelt, was born in New York City. His grandfather, Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt, had been a prominent merchant and philanthropist, and a founder and director of the Chemical National Bank.
Education
In Hilborne Roosevelt's youth the dividing line between the gentleman and "mechanic" was strictly drawn, and his interest in the details of organ building was frowned upon by his family; nevertheless, in opposition to their wishes he entered the shop of Hall & Labagh, New York City, and later made several trips to Europe to study organ construction there.
Career
He became a pioneer in the development of the electric organ and in the application of new electrical devices to organ manufacture, and in April 1869 he took out the first patent for an electric organ action (No. 88, 909). In 1872 he opened his own factory on Eighteenth Street, New York City, and by 1881 his success as an organ builder necessitated the removal of the business to larger quarters. He added factories in Philadelphia and Baltimore, and constructed some of the largest church organs then known in the United States, among them those of the Garden City (Long Island) Cathedral, and of Grace Church and Trinity Church in New York City. The organ he constructed for the main building of the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876, later acquired by the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, attracted much attention, as it combined the best points of European voicing with some effects never before produced ("The Roosevelt Centennial Organ Scheme, " Roosevelt Organ Journal, July 1876). It is said to have been the first electric-action organ built in America. Roosevelt did not confine his attention solely to organ building. Widely known among the creative electricians of his day, he was largely interested in the Bell Telephone Company, and invented several telephone devices, including the automatic switch-hook, on which he received royalties for a number of years. After his untimely death at the age of thirty-seven, his organ business was continued by his brother, Frank H. Roosevelt, until 1893, when the stock and patents were sold to the Farrand & Votey Company of Detroit. In Hilborne Roosevelt the creative rather than the commercial impulse predominated. He was primarily an inventor, and he spent thousands of dollars in electrical experiments and in developing the principle of the electric valve. To him the initial impetus of all subsequent improvement in American organ building is largely due
Personality
In Hilborne Roosevelt the creative rather than the commercial impulse predominated. He was primarily an inventor, and he spent thousands of dollars in electrical experiments and in developing the principle of the electric valve. To him the initial impetus of all subsequent improvement in American organ building is largely due
Connections
On February 1, 1883, he married Kate, daughter of William Watson Shippen, of Hoboken, New Jersey.