Verne Q. Powell, Jeweler

We've become quite familiar with Verne Q. Powell's legacy as a flute maker, but did you know that before he made flutes, he was a jeweler? You may be familiar with the story of Powell's "Spoon Flute," which was the very first flute he made -- and the first metal flute in the United States. Working as a jeweler in 1910, Powell "melted down 7 silver teaspoons and 3 silver watch cases to provide the silver for his first flute and melted down some gold coins to be inlays in the keys" (source: http://www.powellflutes.com/blog/powell’s-“spoon-flute”-sees-light-day).

We've exhibited the Spoon Flute at the NFA convention but were completely surprised when we received a note from a resident of Fort Scott, Kansas who had a pair of earrings made by Powell when he was a jeweler in town.  Laura Nation contacted us earlier this month, sharing the story of the earrings, which she had received from her mother.  Her mother had been given the earrings by her mother, Laura's grandmother, who is the original owner of these earrings.  After some discussion, we discovered that there is a possibility that the earrings may have been in the family even longer, as her grandmother was born in 1906 -- and Powell left Fort Scott in 1916.  Laura was kind enough to share a bit of the history of her discovery with us.

Laura is the third generation of her family to grow up in Fort Scott, Kansas. Tracing the earrings back to her grandmother, she said that her grandparents were childhood friends, high school sweethearts, and then a married couple.  After they married, they lived a bit outside of Fort Scott and would take the train in to town to shop.  Fort Scott was bustling, and the railroad industry was booming.  She mentioned that her grandmother rarely wore jewelry, but she would wear some pieces for church and photographs.  We can understand as she told us that her grandmother cherished the earrings and did not want to lose them because they were so valuable.  From the condition of the earrings, Laura would guess that they are "10K or 14K to have stayed so bright."      

The earrings were indeed a very special present to Laura, and she wanted to learn more.  She told us,

I had never heard of Powell Jewelers, nor had my dad who is now 84 years old. I researched the Verne Q. Powell name on the internet and have found that Mr. Powell lived here and moved to Massachusetts after making the first metal flute in America right here in Fort Scott. I was very excited to learn this, and my husband and I feel that this is a lost part of Fort Scott history that others would love to know about.  I have continued to research Mr. Powell's story and I am amazed at the information I have found. From his humble beginnings here, to the fact that one of his flutes actually traveled into outer space! 

Through her research of Fort Scott's newspaper archives, she was able to find more information on the actual location of Powell's jewelry shop. The shop was located at 7 South Main Street in Fort Scott. Unfortunately, she found that the building was destroyed in a fire in 2005, along with several other historical buildings downtown.  It is truly remarkable that so much of the history has been preserved, and we are very grateful to Ms. Nation for sharing this with us.  When she read about the Powell family boarding a "Pullman" our previous blog post, "The Spoon Flute," she immediately noted the connection to Fort Scott.  She says "sometimes we forget our own history and the remarkable people who have lived in our own hometowns." Anxious to share the story with the current residents of Fort Scott,  she says, "we would like to see Mr. Powell's name, memory, craftsmanship and musical genius honored here someday in some way." We certainly agree and would also like to thank Laura for bringing this living piece of history to us at Verne Q. Powell Flutes.
  

The Spoon Flute

Barrel engraving

We recently caught up with Richard Powell, Verne Powell's grandson, at the Mid-Atlantic Flute Fair.  He shared an interview with us that his father, Edward Powell, gave in 1988.  The excerpt below is Edward's account of the development of Verne Powell's very first flute, "The Spoon Flute" -- along with a short recap of his path from Kansas to Boston.

This goes back to Fort Scott, Kansas, where I was a small boy, and my dad was a jeweler, had a jewelry store, and played a wooden piccolo in the town band.  Among his works of jewelry, he made himself a medal which is the source of humor when we bring up the subject.  But, he played the flute.  This is when they had already experimented with, more than experimented with, making silver flutes or flutes of other materials and precious metals in combinations in Europe -- in Germany and France.  But, in the United States, it was mostly old fashioned wooden flutes.  And the chief manufacturers at that time were in Boston.  The names of the companies who were excelling at it were, first of all, Bettoney.  Bettoney was a bigger name than Haynes, but this story has to tie up with the Haynes Company.  My father happened to be in Chicago on some business trip when he went to hear the Chicago Symphony.  There was somebody there like Barrere, old Georges Barrere, who was playing on a silver flute which made my dad, Verne Powell, "flip" (in the vernacular).  He could hardly wait to get home to his jewelry store and make a silver flute.  Now I was, say, 10 years old.  I was in and out of his jewelry store, and I loved to go in the back room there where he had a hand rolling mill, rolling out this silver.  He melted up old spoons and coins and jewelry and parts of watch cases.  Melted it up, and I remember rolling.  I even had a hand in turning the rolling mill to thin out this metal for him to make his silver flute, which of course had to be twisted around an arbor and hard soldered.  We could make a story out of that for anybody who technically wants to know more about getting the curvatures in there.  But I remember Sunday mornings, my dad sitting at home, with a little leather mallet, and hammering out the taper of the headjoint of a flute.  And so quite a laborious job to create the handmade flute, which he ended up engraving -- being a master engraver -- and inlaid the keys with little gold buttons.

The Haynes Company at that time was a second rate company, but George Haynes was the brains and talent of the Haynes family.  William S. Haynes was the businessman.  It came to Bill's attention that my dad had this handmade silver flute.  So, he wrote to my father to see if he would send the flute for examination.  And immediately following that, he made him an offer to bring the flute and the whole family, and whatever he could -- and sell his jewelry store.  Haynes and my dad got together on an agreement, and my dad was to go there as the foreman.  Then the whole family, all six of us (one brother and two sisters), piled in the drawing room of a Pullman and made it to Boston.

D# Cluster

G# Key

Trill Keys

Headjoint Engraving