Rudolph Teschner

The first ocarina maker in the United States — forty-two years, local clay, no patent, and a tariff line that took his workforce away.

Rudolph Teschner made ocarinas in western New York for forty-two years, from 1878 until the spring he died. He dug his own clay, made thirty-two sizes across four octaves, and turned out fifteen to twenty thousand instruments a year. He held no patent, and for most of that time he was the only ocarina manufacturer in the United States.

Rudolph Teschner died in September 1920. The account below is built from his obituary in Presto, from a letter he wrote to Congress in 1896, and from collectors discussing his instruments on The Ocarina Network; every row of the chronology names where it came from. Where his own account of himself cannot be checked, the page says so.

He was born at New Wedell, Germany, in 1847, and came to North America with his parents at ten, settling first in Canada. He spent the rest of his life in the Genesee country of western New York — the Town of Mendon, five miles east of Honeoye Falls.

What he saw in Vienna

In 1877 he travelled to Europe and saw an ocarina in a Vienna museum, and got permission to examine it. His obituary describes it as a crude clay instrument, shaped much like a sweet potato, with four holes, and says it had been found in the ruins of Pompeii.

The four holes are the useful detail, and they rule something out. A commercially made ocarina of 1877 — Budrio’s, or one of Heinrich Fiehn’s in Vienna — had eight holes or more. Whatever Teschner handled was not a current instrument off a shelf.

Four holes is what the earliest ocarinas had. Giuseppe Donati’s first, made at Budrio in 1853, is described as a globular terracotta whistle on which four finger-holes gave a scale spanning an octave. So the object in the case was either genuinely old, as the obituary says, or an early example of the new instrument that had already had twenty-four years to travel.

Two hundred in the first year

He came home, described it to a friend, and was told he should make some. His obituary says he made them “with eight notes or holes” and that they would not play; he worked out the fault and corrected it, and in 1878 he made two hundred.

He was still at it forty-two years later.

The clay came from one place: Factory Hollow, in the town of West Bloomfield, six to eight tons a year. His factory stood on Parish Road. He made thirty-two different sizes, running from high C to low C — four octaves. The first instruments were painted yellow, and later he colored them black. At his height he was turning out fifteen to twenty thousand ocarinas a year.

His ocarinas were sold by the J. Howard Foote Company in New York and Chicago.

The letter to Congress

On December 31, 1896 he wrote to the House Committee on Ways and Means from Millers Corners, in Ontario County. The whole letter is short:

I am the manufacturer of a musical instrument made of clay called the ocarina. I was the first to introduce it in this country, and it has cost me a great deal of time and money.

Under the McKinley tariff it was fairly remunerative, but under the Wilson reduction of tariff I was compelled to discharge all my hands, as the potters of Europe, working at that business, receive only $3 or $4 per week. You will see that no American laborer can compete with those prices.

I therefore ask your honorable body to consider my case in readjusting the tariff. Under the McKinley tariff these instruments were introduced as decorated earthenware, but under the Wilson tariff they were imported as musical instruments.

The reclassification is the whole of it. As decorated earthenware the imports were taxed at a rate he could live beside. As musical instruments they were not, and European potters earning three or four dollars a week did the rest.

He held no patent. The museum searched in September 2026 and found none, and that absence explains the letter. A man with a patent writes to his lawyer; a man without one writes to Congress. Teschner’s only protection was a line in a tariff schedule, and when the line moved he had nothing.

The end of it

His last order was five thousand instruments for a Chicago house, finished in May 1920. He was unable to work after that, and died at home in September, aged 73 — still, said the trade press, the only manufacturer of the ocarina in the United States.

What survives

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History holds one, made in New York State about 1878 to 1882 — black glazed pottery, stamped R TESCHNER, with eight fingerholes and a thumbhole, and carrying the stock number #7204 of J. Howard Foote, the dealer who sold them. It is object MI.072879. The black glaze matches the obituary’s note that he moved from yellow to black, and the eight fingerholes are very likely what it meant by “eight notes or holes,” since a thumbhole is not usually counted among them.

His instruments turn up regularly and cheaply. His name is stamped on the side; some carry a mouthpiece stamp as well. Collectors describe them as inconsistent — one who owned several said plainly that the tuning is strange and the sound is not good — and they are wanted for what they are rather than how they play.

The Honeoye Falls – Town of Mendon Historical Society holds ocarina molds, and their own account of how is worth repeating. A box of molds from the Teschner factory was kept upstairs in their building. When the village cleared that floor, the DPW crew mistook the molds for pieces of broken plaster and threw them away. Nobody noticed until 2007, when the society began entering its accession book into a collections database and found the entry with no object behind it: “Their location wasn’t specified. They were gone!”

A few years later, in the society’s own words, “Jim Kimball of Genesee donated a box of molds he had purchased at the Avon Flea Market.” A further ocarina and mold came in from Kathy Bruckner in 2024. So the society holds molds today — but the provenance of what survives runs through a flea market, and whether those are Teschner’s is a question the museum would like answered before anyone calls them that.

The old kiln was still standing in a field on Parish Road when the town’s sesquicentennial history was written.

Chronology

Dates the museum has been able to establish, and where each comes from. The obituary is Presto, September 11, 1920; the letter is in the tariff hearings of the House Committee on Ways and Means, Paragraph 326½. Those marked “c.” are the museum’s inference from an age or a span given in words.

1847	Born at New Wedell, Germany	the 1920 obituary
c. 1857	Comes to North America with his parents, aged 10, settling first in Canada	the 1920 obituary
1877	Sees an ocarina in a Vienna museum and gets permission to examine it — clay, shaped like a sweet potato, four holes, said to have been found at Pompeii	the 1920 obituary
1878	Makes his first two hundred. They would not play at first — “eight notes or holes” — until he found the fault	the 1920 obituary
by c. 1890	Living in the town of Mendon, “a resident for more than thirty years” at his death	the 1920 obituary
1894	The Wilson tariff reclassifies imported ocarinas from decorated earthenware to musical instruments	his letter to Congress
Dec 31, 1896	Writes to the House Committee on Ways and Means from Millers Corners, Ontario County: “I was the first to introduce it in this country.” He has discharged all his hands	his letter to Congress
May 1920	Finishes a last order of five thousand for a Chicago house, and cannot work after it	the 1920 obituary
Sep 1920	Dies at home five miles east of Honeoye Falls, aged 73, “declared to be the only manufacturer in the United States”	the 1920 obituary