Category: Industrial

Pottery, Old Sturbridge Village (1819)

by Dan//Commercial, Industrial, Outbuildings, Sturbridge, Vernacular

Harvey Brooks (1779-1873), of Goshen, Connecticut, began work at the age of sixteen as an apprentice potter. After 1819, he worked for himself as a rural farmer-potter, producing 26 different varieties and sizes of redware pots, pans and jugs. He had a pottery shop and an adjacent kiln, where he burned his last batch of ware in 1864, long after most other redware potters had given up practicing their craft. Brooks‘ pottery shop, built around 1819, was moved to Old Sturbridge Village in 1961 and a replica kiln was built in 1979.

Noble and Cooley Drum Factory (1872)

by Dan//Granville, Industrial, Vernacular

In 1852, master mechanic Silas Noble began manufacturing toy drums in his kitchen. In 1854, Noble and his partner, James Cooley (who handled the business side of their operation and whose descendants still run the business), built a factory in Granville (the current structure dates to 1872). Taking advantage of nearby water power (an electric generator was installed in 1915), the Noble & Cooley Drum Company prospered. They made marching drums for the Union Army during the Civil War, but their main business continued to be the production of toy drums. In the 1980s, the company entered the professional drum market, producing a highly regarded single-ply solid shell snare drum using an original steam bending machine from the nineteenth century. The factory, which has a drum weathervane, is now also home to a museum, the Noble & Cooley Center for Historic Preservation.