An American Family History

John Joseph Thomas was born in January, 1850 in Ontario.  His parents were John Morgan Thomas and Mary Lewis. 

At the time of the 1871, census he was living in a boarding house in Hamilton, St. George Ward and his occupation was given as piano finisher.

He married Maria Jane Campbell (Jennie) on February 6, 1873 in Hamilton, Ontario. Maria was born about 1850 in New Jersey and was the daughter of Robert and Margaret Campbell. Their children were Robert John Thomas (1874), Margaret M. Thomas (1876), and Charles H. Thomas (1880).

John served in his brother Charles' firm as manager from 1878 to 1884 and was supervisor of the piano department at Bell Piano and Organ in the 1920s.

At the time of the 1881 census they were living in Hamilton, Ontario. In 1891 they were in Guelph City, Wellington, Ontario.. At the time of the 1911 census they were in Wellington and John was still manufacturing pianos.

John died when he was 65 on December 22, 1915 in Wellington, Ontario of arteriosclerosis and cerebral hemorrhage.

CLAIMS TO ANTE-DATE CHICKERING
In Producing theFull Iron Frame
John J. Thomas' Claim Regarding His Fathers' Invention.

The Toronto Star prints an interesting letter from John J. Thomas, superintendent of the piano department of the Bell Piano & Organ Co., of Guelph respecting the establishment of the piano manufacturing industry in Canada, in which he corrects a recent statement in that publication that the first piano manufactured in Toronto was about 1847 by John Thomas. This error is set right as follows:

"My father the late John Thomas, started piano manufacturing in Montreal in 1832, and in 1839 removed his business to Toronto and manufactured pianos in Chewitt's buildings, on which is the present site of the Rossin House.

In 1844 he built and removed to the building now standing immediately west and adjoining the Princess Theatre on King Street. A stone is in the front of this building with the inscription, Harmony Place, 1844. This building was used as a wareroom, with manufacting shop in rear and above. I might state that the first organs in St. Michael's Cathedral, Holy Trinity Church, and, I think St. George's Church, were built on these prmises, and most of the parts of these original organs are now embodied in the present ones.

I have in my possession a patent deed issued to my father in the year 1840 for what is now known and universally used as the full metallic frame (Chickering claims 1843). I have also a diploma issued to John Thomas & Son, Toronto for a piano exhibited at the first exhibition of all nations in the Crystal Palace, London, England 1851. This piano was built in Toronto. Some few years ago I saw an upright piano in Messrs. Heintzman & Co.'s repair shop built by my father in Montreal in 1833."

from The Music Trade Review, p. 16