Page 24 - Nov 2020 JOA

smaller side, measuring a maximum of 2-feet in diameter so it could “My grandfather took what
easily be transported by a soldier with a length of cord to set up an they learned there and designed
explosion. Thousands of reels were made and sent overseas and and had built an 8-color self-
deployed with troops on missions. inking rotary printing press in
1926,” said Jones. Jones went
on to describe a visit from a

The current building printing specialist from the
used for its offices Smithsonian Institution who
was built by the believes it is the earliest such
workers of Noble & multi-color printer ever made.
Cooley in 1889 after She tried to obtain it for the
the company pur- Museums, but it is still in use
chased another drum today so they will have to wait. Above and below, the 8-color press made at
company nearby Veneer would also be the turn of the century and still going strong
and moved into its applied to the wood rims to give
factory following the them a finished look. Always looking for
1889 fire.
innovative ways to stretch their product line,
the veneer strips that were left over from
production became another product – cigar
Get the Skin-ny on Drum Production lighters. “It was just a thin strip of veneer that
The vast majority of the equipment being utilized at the factory is people would stick into a wood stove to light
original to the start of the business. “The bending equipment for it and use it as a match,” said Jones. “These
bending the drum survived the 1889 fire. We are using that same pre-date matches and electricity.”
equipment today for our modern product– bending wood on a
machine that my great-great-great-grandfather built in the 1870s. Hitting the High Notes
because it meets our one requirement: it works.” One of the points of pride for the
The structure of a drum is Company was when it created a drum for
created by steaming and Abraham
bending one piece of local Lincoln using a rail he had split for the
hardwood into the shape of hoops of the drum. In August of 1860,
the drum. After World James P. Cooley wrote in his diary:
War II, “everything was all “Finished the Lincoln drum today, the
about speed of production,” finest thing ever made.” This drum was
said Jones, “and everything presented to the First Massachusetts
moved to plywood. You could Regiment serving in the Civil War and
put together 8-10 plys of ply- used across the state of Massachusetts at
wood, put it in the press, and political rallies for Lincoln’s campaign.
have a shell in 10 minutes. A In June of 1869, the end of the War
solid wood drum takes 10-12 was celebrated at the National Peace Jubilee
weeks of aging and curing after in Boston, Massachusetts, and Noble &
it was steamed and bent. Cooley built the largest drum in the world
However, the tonal character- The Peace Jubilee Drum made (at that time) with an 8-foot diameter and
istics of the plywood box and by Noble & Cooley “Let Us Have Peace” around its edge. As
the resonant solid hardwood the drum made its way to Boston by rail,
chamber were very different.” “it was celebrated at every stop along the way,” noted Jones.
As for the drum’s playing
surface, or “skin,” said Jones, Noble & Cooley Marches On
“originally, the skins used on Said Jones, “We went through the transition from water power to
the drums were animal skins – steam power; from DC electricity to AC electricity. Not many companies
typically calfskin. The bottom have gone through that many transitions of power generation. And we
skin had to be a little thinner still have examples of all of it here.”
for the snares to work so they In the first year, Noble and Cooley made 631 drums. After the Civil
were typically goat.” The War, they had a large factory that made 80,000 drums per year and had
process to prepare the skins 18 employees, and by 1873 they were producing 100,000 drums per year.
was messy, smelly, and time- Oddly enough, it was the difference in drum construction after
consuming, and after soaking World War II that led to their current success. Musicians had begun to
the skin to put onto the drum scour estate and tag sales for pre-WWII drums that had the hardwood
they had to dry. construction vs. plywood. The tone and overall sound these drums
When it came to creating made were more full-bodied. When approached by a musician seeking
images on the drums, intricate just such a drum, Jones said that while they did not have any in stock,
stencils were impressed onto they could re-create exactly what the musician was looking for, igniting
The two machines shown directly above the wood drums with wood- the crafting of non-toy and non-military drums for higher-end customers
are the bending machines that survived burning equipment. As for the while still using the equipment created by earlier generations. You could
the fire of 1889. toy tin drums that came into say the story had come, with apologies from the author, full circle.
fashion around 1900, a die would be pressed into the metal and an ink Jay Jones started working at Noble & Cooley while in grade school and
roller would pass over the impression, then the next die would be set learned the many crafts of construction, electrical wiring, plumbing,
and so on until the drum had two or three colors. Dies would be welding, and running all of the machine tools at an early age. By June of
stamped, lined up or registered to the metal color blocks on the printer, 1973, Jay served as general manager and purchasing agent. Always looking
and run through. The problem there was that if you had more than for different products to enrich their production calendar, Jay jumped on
three colors for thousands of drums, you had to re-register the piece, the opportunity to make steam-bent, professional drums. What started out
clean off and re-ink the blocks, and run all of them through again. as Jay’s innovations have now become industry standards worldwide.

22 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles