Story, Hampton Lovegrove
|
MILITARY SERVICE Age: 27, credited to Burlington, VT Unit(s): 12th VT INF Service: enl 8/23/62, m/i 10/4/62, CPL, Co. C, 12th VT INF, m/o 7/14/63 See Legend for expansion of abbreviations VITALSBirth: 06/17/1835, Cambridge, VT Death: 10/06/1925 Burial: Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, CA Marker/Plot: Not recorded Gravestone photographer: John Reeves Findagrave Memorial #: 85485819 MORE INFORMATION Alias?: None noted Pension?: Yes, 12/19/1904, CA Portrait?: Unknown College?: Not Found Veterans Home?: Not Found (If there are state digraphs above, this soldier spent some time in a state or national soldiers' home in that state after the war) Remarks: Died in Los Angeles, LA. See Benedict's Army Life in Virginia DESCENDANTS 2nd Great Grandfather of Hampton Flanagan, Los Angeles, CA (Are you a descendant, but not listed? Register today) |
BURIAL: Copyright notice  Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, CA Check the cemetery for location/directions and other veterans who may be buried there. |
Hampton L. Story
Hampton Lovegrove Story, son of Andrew Story (1796-1867) and Adeline Reed (1803-1873), was born 17 June 1835, in Cambridge, Lamoille County, Vermont. He was named after Hampton Lovegrove (1768-1847), the first tavern keeper in neighboring Fairfax, and town clerk in Fairfax for more than 23 years. Lovegrove's wife was Seviah Story, sister of Hampton's grandfather Jacob Story.
In 1850, Story was living with his parents in Cambridge. By 1853, he was living in Hinsdale, Du Page County, Illinois, and teaching singing and day school in Du Page and Kane Counties. In 1857 he went to Chase County, Kansas, where he pre-empted 160 acres of government land, paying for it with a warrant from his father's service in the War of 1812. Andrew Story served a private in Captain Joseph Grout's Fairfax company, and participated in the battle of Plattsburg.
By 1858, Story had returned to Burlington, and was living with his future in-laws, E. A. and Cornelia Fuller, and their daughter Marian, and was running a music store in 1860.
"Born with a deep, inherited appreciation of music, Hampton Story was an accomplished pianist at the age of ten. At twenty he was a busy piano teacher, and at twenty-two he began to manufacture the pianos he knew and loved so well." (Freund, 56)
The Civil War intervened, and he enlisted 23 August 1862, and mustered in 4 October 1862 as a corporal in Co. C, 12th Vermont Volunteer Infantry. He was mustered out with the regiment on 14 July 1863.
Story married twice. By his first wife, Marian Fuller, he had three children, Edward H., Robert T. and Frank. Hampton married second, Adella B. Ellis, on 20 Mar 1876, in Cook County, Ill. Adella, the daughter of Harris and Sharlotta Ellis, was born in Milo, NY, in 1847. Hampton and Adella had two children, Addie and James. When Hampton retired from the piano manufacturing business in 1884, he eldest son Edward took over the reins of the company, through at least 1923.
In 1868, he formed a partnership with Isaac Camp, engaged in the wholesale and rail piano and organ business, in Chicago. The firm, which had capital stock of $500,000, had a factory at 1880 and 190 State Street, Chicago, and branch offices in St. Louis, Des Moines, Kansas City, and St. Paul.
From at least 1872 to 1882, he lived in Hinsdale, Du Page county, just outside Chicago, and in 1882 his property, 21 acres on the edge of Cook County, was valued at $40,000.
On 19 December 1885, Story, Elisha S. Babcock, retired railroad executive from Evansville, Indiana and Jacob Gruendike, president of the First National Bank of San Diego, bought all of Coronado and North Island for $110,000. They later built the now-famous Hotel Del Coronado.
In July 1886, Story and his partner Babcock, launched the first public transit system in San Diego, California, aptly named the San Diego Steetcar Company. (San Diego history).
In 1894, Story bought the so-called Woodbury House in Altadena, an unincorporated section of the city of Pasadena. He built an addition to the house and called it his "music room," wherein he installed a large pipe organ. They lived in this house for 30 years.
In December 1904, Story applied for and was granted a pension for his Civil War service.
In 1924, the Story's moved to Los Angeles, where Hampton died the next year, and Adella the year after.
An extract from Pianos and their Makers, by Alfred Dolge, published in 1911.
"Among the pioneers of the music trade in the west, Hampton L. Story's name stands foremost. Born at Cambridge, Vt., June 17, 1835, he showed an inborn talent for music, and his first employer was in a music store at Burlington, Vt., at the princely salary of $50 per month and board. Having saved a small capital from his wages as schoolteacher, he bought out his principal in 1859. Not satisfied to be merely a dealer, he joined a piano maker by name of Powers, manufacturing the Story & Powers piano in 1862. This was perhaps the first piano factory in the State of Vermont.
The business prospered, but the field was too limited for enterprising Story, and when in 1867 Jacob Estey offered him the agency for the Estey Organs, in the western states, Story closed out his business at Burlington and established himself at Chicago. In 1868 he admitted Isaac N. Camp as partner. The firm of Story & Camp soon became one of the leaders in the piano and organ trade of the west, having stores at Chicago and St. Louis, controlling a large wholesale and retail trade through the entire west.
With his characteristic keenness and foresight, Story observed that the west would eventually manufacture its own musical instruments, and he therefore retired from the firm of Story & Camp and in 1884, with Melville Clark and his son, Edward H. Story, founded the firm of Story & Clark, for the manufacture of reed organs.
Melville Clark was known as an expert reed-organ builder, who had patented many improvements The business was successful from the start, and in 1888 the Story & Clark Organ Company was incorporated, with E. H. story, son of the founder, as president, and Melville Clark, vice-president. The foreign trade grew so rapidly that a factory was erected in London, England, in 1892, under the management of Charles H. Wagener, and another in 1893, at Berlin, Germany.
BibliographyRevised Roster
United States Federal Census, 1850, 1860, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920
Pension Rolls Index, Passport Applications database, www.ancestry.com
Rufus Blanchard, History of DuPage County, Illinois, O. L. Baskin, Aurora, Ill., 1882, p 118 B
Alfred Dolge, Pianos and their Makers, Covina Publishing Company, Covina, Ca, 1911, pp. 375-376
John Christian Freund, editor, The Purchaser's Guide to the Music Industries, Music Trades Corp., 1962, p. 56.
Abby Maria Hemenway, The Vermont Historical Gazetteer, ii:165-190Mike Manning, Altadena: Somewhere in Time; The official Timeline of Altadena History
1876 Illinois Marriage IndexThe initial idea, and some materials for this story provided by Paul Rickert, Hendersonville, NC, great-grandson of Jacob Danforth Whiting, 16th Vermont Infantry.