Saturday, January 19, 2008

Harry Lawrence Hunt and the Dreadnought Guitar


In 1916, while serving as manager of the Charles H. Ditson Store in New York, Harry L. Hunt conceived and named the Dreadnought guitar. Hunt began dealing with C.F. Martin in 1893 while employed at the William A. Pond Company in New York. He soon left Pond for the more lucrative position as manager of Ditson's musical instrument department. Shortly before Ditson's demise he opened the Lyon & Healy Harp Salon in New York's Steinway Hall, leaving the fretted instrument trade for good.

A complete biography of Hunt, as well as the lead-up to the development of Martin's Dreadnought guitar, will be discussed in great detail in the upcoming book, "Birth of the Dreadnought."