USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Granville > History of Granville, Massachusetts > Part 25
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Sensing the situation and realizing that the greatest need of a library is a permanent and adequate headquarters, Mrs. Ralph B. Cooley invited a small group of the public spirited, energetic women of Granville to meet at her home on February 11, 1896, to talk it over. This group she organized into the Granville Library Club, of which she, fittingly, was president. The Club solicited gifts both large and small, the largest of which was $5000.00 received from the late Milton B. Whitney, Esq., a native of Granville, but then living in Westfield. They labored in various ways to earn individual allotments from time to time. They held meetings to arouse public interest in the enterprise. They were determined to have a suitable building for a free library. How well they succeeded is proven by
271
THE £ LIBRARIES
the result. They secured a large lot in Granville village, on the corner of Maple Street and the road to Granby, then owned by Mrs. George Gaines. The Gaines homestead was moved to the east where it now stands. A fine yellow brick building, with red sandstone trim and slate roof, was erected, equipped with the necessary fixtures. The entire plant was finished and the land and building were by deed dated January 15, 1902, turned over to the Town. At a special Town meeting January 27th it was voted to accept the building and portrait of the late Milton B. Whitney, Esq., a native of the town. Also as a token of appreciation for the work of the Library Club, it was voted to permit the Club to choose one of the library Trustees for a three year term, and when that term expired, to choose a Trustee for another three year term. In 1908 this privilege of choosing a Trustee was extended for a further period of six years, and ever since, one Trustee has been a Club member. The library was opened to the public February 22, 1902, and was the equal of any library building in a community of equal size in the Common- wealth. The total cost was $13500.00. The Librarian was Mrs. Mable R. Henry who has served continuously since the opening.
So after six years of intensive labor and many discouragements the Library Club had reached its goal and presented to the Town the well-equipped library of its early dream. The Club was now where it could sit down and let the Town carry on the good work, but they thought otherwise. There was no endowment to provide for upkeep, so they arranged to share the expense of maintenance with the Town and have ever since carried their share of the burden. This is the reason for the annual Library Fair, with its attendant wonderful chicken-pie supper. In addition to books of various types, which now number about 6000, there are most of the leading maga- zines of this part of the country and the current newspapers. The old Free Library has been absorbed and its peripatetic days are over. The little acorn has grown to be a sturdy tree.
The Town annually appropriates for the support of the Library $350.00 and one half of the "dog money," and the Library Club makes good the rest. However, some years, in a spirit of generosity, the Town gives all the "dog money."
In 1906 it was voted to establish and maintain branch libraries
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HISTORY OF GRANVILLE
at Granville Center and West Granville, which was done, so that the entire population of the Town might be conveniently served.
When the question of a location for the present Library building was being considered, there was a demand that it be located at Granville Center, as that would be nearer the geographical center of the Town. The village of Granville was the largest village in the Town and the Library Club favored that location. There ensued some argument, and perhaps a bit of temper too. Anyway, the Cen- ter lost out. But it was not an ill wind, because as soon as the Library building was opened to the public, a library with several hundred books was opened at Granville Center. This was called the Gran- ville Center Free Library. It was established through the munifi- cence of the late Mrs. John M. Stevenson. It finally came to be located in the old "Sabbath Day House," with Mrs. Elliot Barnard as librarian. This house was then owned and occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Elliot Barnard and is the house next east of the meeting house. After some years its chief sponsor died and interest in the Library waned. Funds were not available for the purchase of new books. Those using the Library became fewer and fewer. Then its use ceased altogether. For several years it stood thus, idle and unused, until 1938 when Dr. Holland N. Stevenson suggested that it be given to the Granville Public Library, and in the fall of that year the books were removed to the Library Building and incorporated with the large number of volumes there.
The Drum Shop
A N idea can subvert a nation. Granville never had any such malevolent idea, but it did have one which changed the center of population in the Town, and made Granville famous throughout our land as a manufacturing place. Situated back in the hills, away from all forms of cheap transportation, entirely a farming section, this idea began to take shape soon after 1850. Silas Noble, a farmer in the section of the Town known locally as South Lane, thought he could make a drum. The more he thought it over, the surer he felt about it. He was not a man to sit and dream and keep on dream- ing. It would not cost much to try it out and the winters were pretty long in South Lane. So he set about assembling the necessary mate- rials and started in. He made a drum. It was not a very good one, nor yet a very large one, it was only six inches across the head, but it was a drum. It was the most valuable drum he ever made. It proved to him that he could make a drum. It also made him certain that he could do better, that he could make a better drum. It gave him a vision-a vision of dozens of drums, aye hundreds and thou- sands of them. Thereupon he made another one. It was better than the first. Then another. It was better still. He made it easier and quicker. Then he knew he could make drums. After a few more trials he succeeded in making a good drum. All this happened on the farm. For three weeks he worked at drum making in his father's kitchen. Then he decided to make some drums for market.
He had no proper facilities at the farm for such an enterprise. He felt he must have a shop with a little equipment. He also must have money. He went to James P. Cooley, a man of means in Town, and talked it over with him. He showed the drums he had made. Told him of the possibilities he envisioned. Mr. Cooley was willing to back the venture and it was decided that they would go in together as a partnership under the name of Noble & Cooley and manufacture drums of all kinds. As some of the raw materials had to be brought from the railroad in Westfield, they decided not to locate in West Granville, even though that village was the largest
274
HISTORY OF GRANVILLE
in Town. The present village of Granville, then more or less con- temptuously spoken of as the Corners, or Jockey Corners, consisted of two small stores, a blacksmith shop, a tavern or two, a meeting house and a few small houses. There seemed to be nothing to attract them thither. That left East Granville to be their base. So they built a little shop on the north side of the road at the western edge of that village, near the school house, and in January 1854 began to make drums there by hand. This little shop is now the main part of the house formerly occupied by Charles Flagg.
Close application to the business made it grow and their product was soon favorably known over a wide area. In three years they were employing five hands and they had outgrown their first factory. So in 1857 they moved off "East Granville Hill" and built a shop forty feet long by thirty feet wide and two stories high on the south side of Dickinson Brook and on the east side of the road from the Corners to Granby. For power they built a dam across the Brook at a point nearly opposite the site of the South East District school house which was demolished in 1935. Having water power, and using more help, their staff having expanded now to fifteen em- ployees, golden returns began to be made upon farmer Noble's idea.
In 1860, when the Lincoln campaign was in progress, they sent to Illinois and secured one of the rails split by Mr. Lincoln, then a candidate for President of the United States. This was used for the shell of a special drum to be used in the campaign. Probably this drum is one of the most expensive drums of regular military size ever made. The hooks were of solid silver and the cord was of pure silk, red, white and blue. Later the drum was presented to the 10th Massachusetts regiment, and it finally found a resting place in the United States Patent Office.
The breaking out of the Civil War made their business boom. Many of the Massachusetts regiments were equipped with Noble & Cooley drums. The business grew so that machinery was necessary. They could not make drums fast enough by hand. Naturally they desired to use the cheapest power they could find, and nothing filled the bill so well as water power, but soon more power was needed than Dickinson Brook could furnish, so in 1865 a twenty horse power steam engine was added, and later in 1872 this was replaced
275
THE DRUM SHOP
by one of double its capacity. The number of their employees had by this time increased to forty.
In 1868 they made what is believed to be the largest drum on record. It was eight feet in diameter and was made specially for use in Boston at the time of the first Grant presidential campaign. Later it was used at the Centennial celebration in 1876. It is said that a pair of horses was driven through the barrel of that drum before it was shipped from Granville. The heads were single skins and were obtained only after an extensive search for skins large enough to serve the purpose. It cost $200.00 to manufacture this giant. After serving the ends for which it was made, it was kept in the Coliseum in Boston and was destroyed in that building when it was blown down in a terrible storm.
Noble & Cooley made not only military drums of all sizes, but also toy drums. To give some idea of the growth and extent of the business which had developed in this rural Town, far back from the railroad, the following figures are interesting.
year
drums manu- factured
year
drums manu- factured
1854
631
1860
35000
1855
1336
1861
40000
1856
3870
1862
50000
1857
5556
1863
58000
1858
12926
1873
100000
1859
25000
Whenever anyone is financially successful in any line of business there are always those who immediately rush into that same business hoping to share the success. It was so with the drum business in Granville. No sooner were Noble & Cooley firmly established than others fell in love with the drum business. Bevil C. Dickinson had a mill with water power near the iron bridge over Dickinson Brook on the road through the gorge to Loomis Street, in Southwick. Here he began to make drums and later took his son Ethan into partnership. After the father died in 1895, Ethan carried on the business alone.
In Water Street Edward Holcomb had a saw mill, and there also
276
HISTORY OF GRANVILLE
were two small machine shops, all of which utilized the water of the brook for power. The following is taken from the Granville Sun of April 1, 1881, (one of Granville's ventures into journalism) . "Bruch and Barlow have bought Edward Holcomb's saw mill and keg shop on Water Street, and are going to manufacture drums." These two men were Adolph Bruch, who had been in the employ of Noble & Cooley, and Edmund Barlow, who had been in the employ of Mr. Dickinson. Bruch & Barlow built a new factory near the saw mill, so as to use the same source of power, and made drums there. This factory stood approximately where the present factory of the Noble & Cooley Co. stands. Later Edwin N. Henry was taken into the partnership and business was conducted under the name Bruch, Barlow and Henry. After a few years this partnership sold out its plant to Mr. Henry and Carlos Gibbons, who continued to make drums there until disaster fell upon Noble & Cooley in 1889.
Silas Noble died in 1888 and his son, Orville R., took his father's place in the business of the firm. In 1889 James P. Cooley died and his son, Ralph B., succeeded to his father's place in the firm which continued under the same name of Noble & Cooley. Misfortune, however, fell in that same year. Fire, the dreaded terror of all people in all places, broke out in the factory and in two hours or so, all was in ashes. But the sons were worthy of their sires. Dismayed, but not discouraged, they went to Gibbons & Henry to negotiate for their factory. As a result they purchased the Gibbons & Henry plant, and there began their business anew. The Noble & Cooley Company is still making drums on the same site. Wages in those days were not high, being for the most part twelve and a half cents an hour.
From time to time, in addition to drums, other lines were manu- factured. In 1866 they began to make lawn croquet and parlor croquet sets. In that year 567 sets were made and this line of goods was continued until over 7000 sets had been made. In that same year they also began to make cigar lighters and continued making this article until they had made and sold 3056 barrels of them. In 1869 the manufacture of tooth picks was begun and in the space of four years they put on the market 757 cases of them. Each case
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THE DRUM SHOP
contained one hundred boxes and there were 2500 in each box. In 1872 they made rolling hoops for children, turning out 750 gross of them. They also made children's and doll's carriages, ten pins, mallet heads, zithers, tambourines, and various other items.
Special machinery was designed and built to make better drums and more of them, and then to make them still better. At first only a small amount of metal was used. Wood and leather were the chief materials. Wood was plenty and it was a boon to the farmers to be able to sell their hard wood logs so near home. The skins used for the heads of military drums were purchased raw in Liverpool and tanned in Granville. This made the tanning business flourish. But now wood as a component part has been largely eliminated. They have their own process for printing upon tin in colors. The making of a drum now is a very highly specialized operation.
Fire can be as unkind to one competitor as to another. The next year after the Noble & Cooley factory burned, the sky was again lighted by fire. This time it was the Dickinson factory, and in a few hours that too was in ashes. It has never been rebuilt, and the busi- ness carried on there has gone elsewhere. So it chanced that Noble & Cooley were again alone in their field.
However, there can be other troubles than fire. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there seemed to be a wave of big business overrunning and otherwise destroying small business. Combination was the idea of the hour. The novelty and toy trade did not escape. About December 10, 1902, The National Novelty Corporation was organized in New York to take over about ninety-five per cent. of the novelty manufacturing concerns in the United States as of January 1, 1903. After much negotiation and deliberation, Noble & Cooley decided to cast their lot in with the big concern, which they did, and the plant in Granville was taken over by the New York corporation at that time. But even the big fish which have swallowed the little ones, sometimes get swallowed in turn. So it was with The National Novelty Corporation. It was soon taken over by the still larger United States Hardware and Woodenware Corporation.
The manufacture of drums in Granville went along under the new regime in a progressively unsatisfactory way until finally Messrs. Noble and Cooley applied to the Court for the appoint-
278
HISTORY OF GRANVILLE
ment of a Receiver. This application was granted and the so-called "trust" was broken up, with the result that the various properties had to be sold. When it came time for the sale of the Granville unit, Messrs. Noble and Cooley were on hand and bought it back. Thus ended Granville's experience in the realm of high finance. The busi- ness had to be built up again, which was done, and the "drum shop" hummed merrily once more. The business was incorporated as The Noble & Cooley Company, and upon the death of Mr. Noble in 1921, Mr. Cooley purchased the Noble interest and continued the business with the assistance of his nephew Ralph G. Hiers. Mr. Cooley died in 1935, Mr. Hiers died in 1953, and now his two sons are carrying on the business. They have begun to rebuild the plant by replacing the frame buildings with fireproof structures. This con- cern is the oldest and largest manufacturer of toy drums in the world, having been established in 1854. At times of peak produc- tion, with the present machinery, the factory gives employment to 100 persons and its capacity is 5000 drums per day. In the course of a year it makes and ships about 500000 drums, besides tam- bourines, banjos and other items. Some of the operatives have been in the employ of the concern fifty years, and not a few for thirty or more years. The wages have never been high, but it has not failed to give its employees their job every year.
As stated before, the drum factory has been the cause of many changes in Granville. When it was first built by the side of Dickin- son Brook, Jockey Corners was a straggling little country hamlet, but as the factory grew, other families came to the village and other houses were built. The more families, the more trade for the store and the more people to attend the church. In a few years another meeting house was built. In 1883, the name of the post office in the village was changed to Granville and the village has come to be known by that name, although it is often spoken of as the Corners to distinguish it from the Center. The center of population is no longer at West Granville, but must be not far from Granville Cen- ter. When the excellent Granville Library building was built, it was located in Granville as it was thought it would from that point serve the greatest number of readers, the greater part of the business being in that part of the town.
279
THE DRUM SHOP
The employees of Noble & Cooley's drum factory, like all young people everywhere, wanted amusement at times, so not long after 1880 they organized a brass band. The name adopted was the Drum Makers Band. It played on various festive occasions at home and in neighboring towns, but as those most interested moved away, or for other causes lost their interest, it was given up after a decade or so.
The Cemeteries
O NE of the less pleasant things of life which forcibly intrudes itself upon us, whether we will or no, is death. It matters not whether a community is in the pioneer stage or has centuries of history behind it, some provision must be made for the dead.
The first cemetery in Bedford, or "burying yard," to use the ancient designation, was, so far as can be ascertained, the one situ- ated on the hill just west of what is now Granville Center. This location is not far from the site of the first meeting house, being easterly therefrom. The first mention of it in the records is found in the minutes of the meeting of the inhabitants held March 12, 1753, when it was voted that "Stephen Hickox and Joseph Clark (be) a Committee to call upon the persons that have not work (ed) at the Burying Yard, to work to clear and fence the same." It appears to have been just an irregular plot of land set apart for burial purposes and used by common consent. This view seems to be strengthened by the fact that the wall built around the cemetery enclosed also some land later claimed to be owned by Alfred Hamil- ton, for he gave a deed to the East Parish December 26, 1853, for the expressed consideration of $27.00 for "land in connection with the Old Burial ground in said Parish in Granville and bounded on the stone wall now built around said grounds, of all the land I own inclosed within said wall," one half acre, more or less. Exactly how this claim arose, and what part of the cemetery it particularly affected, does not appear.
How long it had been used for burials prior to this time, we can not exactly tell, although an inscription on one of the headstones gives some information. It is the stone at the grave of Elizabeth Rose which shows when the grim Reaper began to stalk through the little settlement on the hills of Bedford. It is as follows :
Here lies the body of Mrs. Elizabeth wife of Mr. David Rose who deceased Sept. 24, 1775, In the 70 year of her age.
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THE CEMETERIES
By her lies Lucy Rose daughter of the said Elizabeth, who deceased Sept. 1742, in the 3 year of her age. Being the first person laid in this burying ground.
The child of Elizabeth Rose was not long the sole occupant of this lonely God's Acre. Sarah Pratt, five year old daughter of Capt. Phineas Pratt, died, according to the inscription on her headstone, Sept. 23, 1742. Thus for Granville began the ever recurring sor- rows, and eleven years later the clearing of the ground was finished and it was fenced.
Many of the early graves are marked by stones without inscrip- tion, which appear to be such as might then have been, and may now be, picked up in the fields in the immediate neighborhood, and it is entirely possible, and may be quite probable, that one of these uninscribed stones may mark the grave of Samuel Gillet, who, as Dr. Cooley states in his historical discourse delivered at the Gran- ville Jubilee, "fell dead while working in a field, the first death in Granville, 1739." In recent years this cemetery has not been used frequently. The most recent burial there is that of Mrs. Elizabeth S. (Beckman) Lemidon in 1943.
For about forty-five years no other burial place was used than the one just mentioned, but as more settlers arrived and more farms were carved out of the wilderness, there arose among those living west of the Great Valley a demand for a cemetery nearer to them, and on March 27, 1787, one acre of land was conveyed by deed of Ezra Baldwin to the Middle Parish of Granville for the considera- tion of £6, the Town of Granville having been in 1784 divided into "three separate Societies or Parishes." This deed recites that the land is to be used as a cemetery, and is recorded in Hampshire Registry of Deeds in Volume 28 at page 535. This new burying ground was not next to the highway, but on a knoll about thirty rods north of the highway on the easterly outskirts of the present village of West Granville, and access to it was had through a lane which passed over private land. The title to this lane was acquired by the Parish August 24, 1876, from Francis B. Cooley, of Hartford,
282
HISTORY OF GRANVILLE
Connecticut, by deed recorded in Hampden Registry of Deeds in Volume 342 at page 208. This lane is described as five rods wide and extending northerly from the highway to the cemetery. The deed conveys this strip of land to the West Parish in Granville. Later an additional piece of land was secured from Linus Hubbard by deed dated November 25, 1884, and recorded in the last mentioned Reg- istry of Deeds in Volume 401 at page 449. Still another piece was obtained from Mary J. Reeves by deed dated September 20, 1884, recorded in said Registry in Volume 412 at page 18. The Hubbard deed conveys the land to the Inhabitants of the Parish in West Granville, and the Reeves deed to the Inhabitants of West Granville.
As time went on, it came to be inconvenient and awkward to have the authority for all matters relating to the cemetery vested in such an indefinite body as the "West Parish" (formerly the Middle Parish) and so on May 5, 1906, the West Granville Cemetery Association was incorporated to care for the cemetery and perform all the duties formerly devolving upon the Parish in that regard. The title to all the four pieces of land above mentioned was duly conveyed by the West Parish to the Association by deed dated October 29, 1906, which is recorded in said Registry in Volume 720 at page 573.
Everything seemed then to be set to go ahead in an improved condition, but soon the question arose as to whether the West Parish had any authority at all in the matter, and whether the deed of the "Parish" was of any force or validity. Whatever the legal phase of the matter may have been, it was decided to keep on the safe side, and so a quit claim deed was secured from the Town of Gran- ville releasing any claim it might have to the cemetery. This deed is dated March 15, 1907, and is recorded in said Registry in Volume 711 at page 435.
The records do not show what provision for a hearse existed in the early days, but this matter came before the annual Town meet- ing in 1825, although the Town did not own either of the two cemeteries then existing, and had nothing to do with their manage- ment or control, all of which authority was vested in the Parishes. However, at that meeting the Town voted to purchase two hearses,
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