John Henry Belter

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(b Hilter, nr Osnabr?ck, 1804; d New York, 15 Oct 1863). American cabinetmaker of German birth. He arrived in New York in 1833 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1839. He was established as a cabinetmaker by 1844 and showed an ebony and ivory table at the New York Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in 1853. In the following year he opened a five-storey factory on 76th Street near Third Avenue. In 1856 Belter's brother-in-law John H. Springmeyer joined the firm. William Springmeyer and Frederic Springmeyer joined in 1861, and in 1865 the firm's name was changed to Springmeyer Bros; it went bankrupt in 1867. Belter's fame is for technical innovation, reflected in four patents: the first, in 1847, for a device to saw openwork patterns into curved chair backs; the second, in 1856, for a two-piece bedstead of laminated construction; the third, in 1858, for a refinement to his process for achieving laminated construction with three-dimensional curves; and the fourth, in 1860, concerned with laminated construction and central locking. Belter's furniture

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