The Northwest’s first piano came from Paris after passing through England.
J. Pleyel, the manufacturer, finished it in rosewood, added a folding music rack and swinging candle holders on each side for light. Headed by musicians, the firm’s pianos were known for their facile touch and tone. Mozart admired them, and Chopin made his 1831 Paris debut on one. The Covington piano, however, would lead no such rarified life. It was destined to become a frontier piano.
In 1846, it arrived at Fort Vancouver. The instrument traveled from England around Cape Horn with its owners and stopped briefly in the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii) before scooting across the Pacific and up the Columbia River to the fort. Richard and Charlotte “Anna” Covington, both hired by John McLoughlin as school teachers for Hudson’s Bay employees, brought their piano, guitar and violin.
About 1848, the couple built a home in Orchards near the intersection of today’s 76th Street and Covington Road. Their home grew into the area’s social center. For decades, the pair and their instruments entertained Columbia (later Vancouver) Barracks officers and prominent locals. Assigned to the barracks during 1852-53, Brevet Capt. Ulysses S. Grant visited the Covington cabin often. One story says the captain parked his posterior clumsily on the Covingtons’ violin, cracking it.
