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unlikely he was at the Battle of Shiloh, which took place before he Civil War Drums
was in uniform. “The military drums we made were contract drums for the Union
“Clem was present at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863, where he Army,” says Jay Jones. The contract went out for the drums with select
reportedly wielded a rifle and shot a Confederate officer. After the war, specifications: they had to be 16 inches in diameter, 12” deep, and with
Clem joined the Army as a soldier and became an officer. When he a set number of leather keepers on it – ears for tensioning.” The drums
retired in 1915 he was a general.” needed to be small enough to be portable for the players, and having
produced a variety of sizes of toy drums Noble & Cooley fit the bill.
Creating the Drums of Patriotism “We could meet those requirements so we made thousands of drums
In a small town in the Southwest corner of Massachusetts stand for the Civil War.”
hardwood trees that have served the community’s timber businesses. Following the Civil War, Noble & Cooley was established as the
One drum maker and supplier to the Union Army during the Civil largest manufacturer of military drums in the world. At the same time,
War was Noble & Cooley, a business that today continues to make the company expanded to make toy drums and other playthings –
drums using those same hardwoods and working with several agencies including “rolling hooples,” tambourines, and zitherns. The 1888
to preserve the “Noble & Cooley Forest” for generations to come. catalog cover shows they were manufacturing it all in Granville and had
In 1853, Silas Noble, a farmer, started making toy drums in the a salesroom on East Broadway
family kitchen for Christmas gifts. Thinking a toy instrument was a in New York.
good idea for a product line, he paid a visit to James P. Cooley, Silas’ “Unfortunately, the com-
friend—a farmer and a bit of an entrepreneur—and together they pany burned down in 1889
incorporated the business as a toy company in January 1854. To this day, and we lost all the records
Noble & Cooley continues to create toy drums sold at such establish- specifying how many drums
ments as the Vermont Country Store and Colonial Williamsburg using we made and where we
manufacturing equipment that has proven to be tried and true since shipped them to. We salvaged
predecessors created it in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. what equipment we could
from the fire but pretty much
lost everything.” This included
samples for current sales and
examples of the drums created
for the Civil War.
The Company moved Noble & Cooley built this drum for the
quarter-mile down the road. Union Army during the Civil War. It was
“Between 1854 and 1889, picked up off the battlefield at Gettysburg by
there was another drum manu- James B. Forrest, a musician and rifleman
from Pennsylvania. The drum remained in
facturing company operating Forrest’s family until the drum changed into
in Granville so after the fire, the hands of a broker of Civil War
we bought their factory and Memorabilia. “We are thrilled to have
then built the building where recovered this drum through the help of very
the current offices are to this generous donations.”
day in 1889,” said Jones. Noble & Cooley Center for Historic Preservation

World War II
Not only did Noble &
Cooley play an important role
in the Civil War, but with new
A rather impressive image of the Brown, Cooley, Noble, and Strong families technology developed to use
of the Noble & Cooley Company taken and retouched by in the Second World War,
the photographer in Granville, Massachusetts they found themselves working
Noble & Cooley is the oldest in concert with a nearby
drum company in the U.S. and company located in Simsbury,
one of the oldest in the world. Connecticut.
Seven generations of the Cooley The Ensign-Bickford Ex-
family have worked and continue plosives Company (E-B) was Above, 1937 reels of Primacord showing the
to work steadily to keep the busi- established in 1836 by William trademark awarded in that year. photo:
ness alive and moving forward Bickford and started out by Ensign-Bickford

using not only the equipment creating the world’s first safety Shown below are some of the reels created for
created by their forefathers, but fuse for mining that saved hauling detonating cord into battle during
today using current, intricate, hundreds of lives every year. World War II.
carefully engineered techniques E-B followed that up by
for the creation of drum sets for introducing several other
the likes of Phil Collins (whose versions of detonating cord. In
son uses the drums while on tour 1937, they trademarked the
with Dad), Bill Kreutzmann of word “Primacord,” which was
the Grateful Dead, Denny often used as a generic name
Carmassi (plays with Heart and for detonating cord from that
Whitesnake), and Sir Paul point forward. With WWII
McCartney. Company President fast approaching, they turned
Jay Jones (great-great-great- to Noble & Cooley to create
grandson to James P. Cooley) the wooden reels that would
made this turn in direction, hold the product while it was
establishing the first U.S. custom sent to the battlefields and
drum shop. then used by the explosives
experts. The reels were on the
An image of inspiration that hangs in Jay Jones’ office.
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