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The ghost of a former empire stands silent and remote in a spot in northwest Freeport which many people don’t even know exists. An old factory building on Beech Street close to the Wallace yards of the Illinois Central Railroad is one of the few reminders left of the once distinguished S.N. Swan and Sons, piano and organ factory. The Swan Co. was a big employer in Freeport during the first quarter of this century. They put out 30 reed organs a day for shipment throughout the states and abroad to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, England and Scotland. The company employed “more than 100 hands.” An astute Swedish immigrant, Swen Nilsson Swan, skilled cabinetmaker, was the dynamo behind the enterprise. He was born in Sweden in 1844, son of a butcher and tanner. A book called “History of the Swedes of Illinois,” published in 1908 by the Engberg-Holmberg Publishing Co. of Chicago, tells his story.
“After receiving such education as the local public schools afforded.” the biography states, “he was at age 15 apprenticed to a cabinet-maker.” Young Nilsson, as he apparently later preferred to be called, rather than Swen Swan, spent about four years learning this trade and after finishing his apprenticeship, became a patternmaker at Kristianstad, Sweden, and later at Malmo, Sweden. In the latter city, he spent a year at piano-making. Nilsson, still unsettled though, decided to return to Kristianstad. Perhaps he was influenced by the introduction into his life of Ingrid Carison, for it was during this time, in 1866, in Kristianstad, that he married the Swedish maiden. There in Kristianstad he started his own furniture factory in 1867 when he was 23 years old. But the wanderlust of youth still had not let go of him and in the spring of 1868, "He embarked for America.” On Easter Sunday 1868 he and Ingrid landed in New York City. Something brought them to Wyanet, Illinois. where he was employed at cabinetmaking for a couple of years. But the Swans had still not found their permanent niche. In the fall of 1870 they moved to Mendota, lured by the Western Cottage Organ Co. He worked his way up in that factory and stayed there for six or seven years. But in 1887 he moved to Chicago where he bought into the Chicago Cottage Organ Co. and worked as a foreman contractor. The enterprising craftsman bought into the Hobart M. Cable Co., a distinguished American piano-maker, and took a position as manager and superintendent of the Burdett Organ Factory which had come to Freeport from Erie, Pa., in 1894. The Cable firm bought out the Burdett company in 1901. In November 1907 Swan bought this plant, gave it his name and became president. His two sons, David and Gustaf, were trained in the trade “from the ground up” and became partners with their father. L. A. Fuiwider’s “History of Stephenson County,” published in 1910, called the D.E. Swan Organ Co. “manufacturers of high grade cabinet organs a concern of recent growth.” Futwider said the Burdett Organ Co., preceded the Swan Co. for a number of years. It was organized by the Burden brothers and was at first on Freeport’s “Manufacturers Island,” a group of factories along the Pecatonica River northwest of the current downtown. Burdetts, however, soon needed more floor space, so bought the Johnson Wheel Co. near the Illinois Central yards. The Location, Fulwider said, “offers facilities for transportation of the manufactured product, and in this respect the Swan Organ Factory’s location surpasses that of any manufacturing concern in the city.” He went on to say that the prospects for the future of the D. E. Swan Organ Co. are extremely bright.” But as the company went along, home organs lost their appeal and the Swan company turned to making pianos and even later, to hand-wound phonographs. A story carried in the March 1, 1975, Weekender, written by Duncan Birdsell quotes several former Swan company employees. The late Arthur E. Anderson was a grandson of the go-getter, S. N. Swan. He remembered seeing the buzzing factory as a kid. (Life & Times in Freeport Illinois" by Leslie T. Fargher, p.31). LOOKING BACK by Harriet Gustason
John L. Kornfeind was born and spent the vast majority of his life living just a few blocks from this old Factory. The name of the district of Freeport is the Johnston Wheel Factory district or Organ Factory district, both names for this factory which lies along side the tracks of Wallace Yards (formerly a part of the Illinois Central RR & today part of the CN RR). This past winter the back portion of the building collapsed, probably due to age and weathering. The Post Card (top of page) is an advertising piece which was used by the company. John Kornfeind is also in possession of some sheet music from the Swan Piano Factory.
Some notes from Tom Kornfeind:
This is from Pierce Piano Atlas----------------------- "H. D. Cable was born in York 1849. In 1880 with Wolfinger Organ Co. which was changed to Western Cottage Organ Co. then to Chicago Cottage Organ Co. In 1890 he consolidated with Conover and two brothers, Fayette S. and Hobart M. Cable." These instruments were shipped by Horse Drawn Wagon from Chicago to Frontier Western States and many ordered for traveling preachers. History preserves that in 1879 the Organ Company started in Chicago as the Wolfinger Organ Co. by F.R. Wolfinger, John A. Comstock and Herman D. Cable. About 1885 Comstock sold his interest to E. E. Wise, and George W. Tewksbury, both formerly connected with the Western Cottage Organ Co., and the name changed to Chicago Cottage Organ Company in 1885. In 1889 Fayette S. and H.M. Cable came into the business, which after H. D. Cable's death in 1899 became The Cable Co. with F.S. Cable as president. This one from History of Stephenson County - "Burdette Organ Company moved from Erie, Pennsylvania to Freeport in 1894 and was incorporated with F. J. Burdette as President. 3 story building was erected on Manufacturers Island, but the company left it in 1898 to occupy the larger Johnson Wheel Company factory in the northwest part of Freeport. Hobart M. Cable bought the firm and changed it to his name in 1901.
D.E. Swann, general superintendant of the Cable Company, became a member of the new firm. S. N. Swann and Sons, which bought the plant in 1907 when the Cable operation was moved elsewhere. The Swann company closed in 1923"
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You can see Lucille (Henkel) Pospischil (grandmother of John Kornfeind) who was a reed tuner for the Swan Co in this photo.
Lucy is the tall woman with darker hair. She is standing next
to the organ where the man is seated at the key board. Tom Kornfeind (brother of John) has examined this photo carefully and he believes that
the brand name of the organs being worked on here was Chicago Cottage. Freeport and the surrounding area had many small to moderate sized industries and attracted many skilled worked from Germany and before Germany was formed the various
Germanic speaking principalities, Prussia and Austria-Hungary. Lucy (nee Henkel) Pospischil spoke & wrote (a number of different scripts) German and English, because that was what was
taught in the Catholic schools of Freeport in the pre WW1 era. Lucy married Albert Pospischil, who along with his brothers and sister came from Zwittau in Moravia of the old Austrian-Hungarian
Empire. Albert was a skilled woodworker and worked for the Woodmanse Windmill Co. and Fairbanks Morse Co. in later years among others. Lucy's Father Joseph John Henkel was also
employed by Swan Piano Co. as woodworker/cabinet maker. He learned his trade in his home village of Soisdorf, at the time the state was known as Hesse-Nassau. Joseph, (John Kornfeind's Great Grandfather), we believe worked for a couple of decades for the various makers of musical instruments in Freeport.
He was born in Europe in 1856 and suffered heat stroke while doing his trade
at the Swan Piano Co. in the summer 1916. He never recovered and died at home. He was married to Theresa (nee Wiemers) Henkel. Her father John Joseph Wiemers and his brother Zacharias
were both woodworkers/cabinet makers and worked in Freeport for the Western Union Railroad which eventually was acquired by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad.
The woodworkers trade plays a strong role in the Kornfeind family story and the Swan Piano Co.
It is said of the Henkel household, that Great Grandmother Theresa kept a miniature or a child's version of the organs you see above. It was something that was loved and played. However,great Grandmother was not a person to keep many material items, one day it was just gone!
