John joseph merlin family disappearance

MAGICAL MERLIN by Sarah Freiberg

Merlin

It was December, and I was between Messiah rehearsals.

My baroque cello and I had just returned from a very different climate, and the cello was buzzing up a storm. I thought I'd bring it in to Curtis Bryant, my local repair person, just to make sure a seam hadn't opened up on our cross-country trek.

Bryant who had found and restored my cello, (see "A Jewel in the Rough", STRINGS July/August 1998) had another instrument he wanted me to see. While he examined my cello (it was the wound gut strings that were buzzing--the cello was just fine), I tried out the NEW instrument.

Joseph Merlin (–), 'Ingenious Mechanick', musical-instrument maker and flamboyant showman, is perhaps best remembered for his Museum in Princes Street.

Merlin created a barrel organ-harpsichord capable of playing nineteen tunes, a one-man orchestra, and many other musical devices.

Perhaps most surprisingly of all, genealogical records reveal the existence of a wife, Ann. Goulding, and two children (one of whom Ann Johanna survived to be.

1.

John Joseph Merlin was a late Georgian inventor who is often known to have created the first quad roller skate.

It was love at first hearing--the cello spoke to me. I wasn't in the market for a baroque cello, but, I took that cello from Curt's shop that evening--and never brought it back! Judging from the comments I and the cello have since received, I made the right choice.

My new-to-me baroque cello was made in London in 1784 by a most unusual man named John Josep