You're talking about a period of rapid change. Brass bands and the accordion were marginal in 1840, universal a generation later. The piano spread very widely at the same time - in the US, it probably followed the railway, as they were hard to shift any other way. The guitar was a parlour curiosity of no significance at all until very late in the century, and really didn't take the place of the banjo until after WW1. After the piano, the violin and flute were the most important instruments. The recorder had more or less gone, I've only seen one advertisement for them in a 19th century English-language publication. The penny whistle was invented around 1840 but didn't seem to make much impression for a long time. Ditto the harmonica, the early ones were too flaky and expensive to work as folk instruments - probably the first free-reed to be generally popular was the flutina (whose nearest present-day equivalent is the Cajun accordion). The cello seems to have had very sporadic distribution, there's at least a PhD's worth of research in getting an accurate picture of how many there were and how they were used.

One of the best ways to get a feel for this stuff is to look at local newspapers and see what sort of instruments were offered for sale at what prices. Music shops would usually try to provide a complete service, so they'd also sell the popular music sheets of the time and offer lessons.