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The Holbrook Bell
by Clifford W. Brown, Jr.
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Holbrook bell, Chepachet Meeting House.
Click on photo to enlarge.
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On April 16, 1822, the Proprietors of the Chepachet Meeting House voted that "James Wilder and Job Armstrong be appointed a committee ... to procure a bell." This bell, cast the same year, was
made by a firm in Medway, Massachusetts, started by Major George Holbrook, one of the earliest bell founders in America, who, it is believed by many, learned his trade from Paul Revere.
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Map of East Medway, 1871, showing location of Holbrook
bell foundry at the corner of Spring and Main
streets.
The Chepachet bell was probably cast at that location.
Click on photo to enlarge.
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The bell bears the inscription "GEO H HOLBROOK MEDWAY MASS 1822." George Handel Holbrook, to whom the bell's inscription refers, was the son of George Holbrook; both father and son were
associated with the firm when the Chepachet bell was cast. Since Holbrook bells at both Milford and Mendon, Massachusetts, cast in 1819 and 1820, respectively, were bought by churches designed
by Elias Carter (who also designed the meeting house in Chepachet), it may well be he who suggested that the Chepachet Proprietors turn to this foundry to make their purchase. It also may have been
Clark Sayles, who built the Chepachet Meeting House, and who worked for Carter on the Milford Church.
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Record of the vote to purchase the
Chepachet Meeting House bell, from
The Clerk's Deed Book of The
Proprietors
of The Chepachet Meeting House, April 16, 1822.
Click on photo to enlarge.
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Record of the January 6, 1823 proprietors
meeting vote reappointing James Wilder
and Job Armstrong to
"finish the business
relative to the bell, shed, and fence,"
from The Clerk's Deed Book.
Click on photo to enlarge.
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Although the bell was, by its inscription, cast in 1822, it is not clear when it was transported to Chepachet and hung. At the annual meeting of the Proprietors, held January 6, 1823, it was voted "that
James Wilder and Job Armstrong be reappointed a committee to finish the business relative to the bell, shed, and fence." It is not clear what this unfinished business was. The bell was already cast by
this time, but it may not yet have arrived in Chepachet, or it may have arrived, but not yet been hung. 1823 is therefore our best estimate of when the bell began to ring throughout the village, there being
no further discussion in the minutes of unfinished business regarding the bell—although there was much subsequent discussion over the next few years regarding the shed. We know it was in service by
1827 because on January 7, 1828, the Proprietors voted unanimously to present thanks to Joseph B. Watson "for generously giving his services for ringing the bell of the meeting house the year past."
It appears that many colonists on occasion tried their hand at making bells, and there are advertisements by bell makers appearing in colonial newspapers as far back as 1717.1 There were, however,
as far as we know, only three traditions or lines of bell-makers and bell-making in New England dating back to the eighteenth century, two arising in Connecticut (one of these later continued in upstate
New York), the other in Massachusetts. As in the case of architects, bell makers built on the collective wisdom of their predecessors, improving and experimenting as they went along.
The Connecticut traditions started first. John Whitear of Fairfield was casting bells as early as 1744; one cast in 1762 still hangs in Christ Church, Stratford today, according to historian Winthrop
Warren.2 Whitear's son carried on the business until his death in 1773 when his equipment was acquired by Isaac Doolittle of New Haven, who made bells until nearly the end of the eighteenth century.
His business was assumed by James Cochran who continued making bells into the early nineteenth century.
Isaac Doolittle's nephew Enos Doolittle, who apprenticed with Isaac, also made bells, after 1788 in partnership with Jesse Goodyear; Enos' son James continued the family bell-making tradition in
Hartford until 1811.3 Goodyear, originally from Hamden eventually returned there and continued to make bells.
A second Connecticut bell-making tradition (which migrated to New York) was started by Benjamin Hanks of Mansfield, Connecticut. He apparently began his professional life as an apprentice to
Thomas Harland, a clock maker. Hanks began making bells in Litchfield in the 1780's and, after 1790, back in Mansfield. In 1808 he moved to New York State and established a foundry in Gibbonsville
(now part of Watervliet), near Troy in partnership with his son Julius, who soon became the principal person in the business. Benjamin, however, received a patent in 1816 for an improved method of
casting bells, and according to Warren, he induced his brother Alpheus, together with a Mansfield neighbor Ephriam Gurley, to move to Troy and produce iron yokes for hanging bells. This firm was
Hanks, Gurley, and Company. Benjamin (who died in 1824), his brother Alpheus, his sons Julius and Truman, his grandson Oscar, and other members of the family continued to make bells in Troy itself
, possibly into the 1850's.4
Coming out of this tradition was the very prolific Meneely bell dynasty which lasted well into the 20th century. This started with Andrew Meneely who was born in Gibbonsville in 1802 and was
apprenticed there to Julius Hanks at the age of 15. In 1823 Meneely went to Auburn, New York, to work with Horatio Hanks, brother of Julius, who made instruments and small bells. While there, he
married Horatio's niece Philena Hanks. He returned to Gibbonsville in 1825 and moved into the Hanks foundry which Oscar had abandoned when he relocated the business across the river to Troy in
1823. Meneely's business passed to his sons Edwin and George, who had rocky financial circumstances until their mother took over the financial management of the firm. Another son, Clinton, started
his own bell founding business in competition. The Troy Bell Foundry, later Jones & Co. spun off from the Meneely tradition.5
The earliest professional bell founder to cast bells on a sustained basis in Massachusetts is believed to have been Aaron Hobart of Abington, who was casting bells as early as 1770. Hobart learned his
trade by employing the services of one Gillimore, a deserter from the British Navy, who had learned about bell casting in England. A bell cast by Hobart in 1791 still hangs in the Meeting House in
Salisbury, New Hampshire.
In 1792, Revolutionary patriot, silversmith, and coppersmith Paul Revere volunteered to cast a bell for a Boston church. Knowing a lot about metal, but little about bell casting, he turned to Hobart for
advice. Hobart obliged, sending his son together with Gillimore to Boston to help Revere. The cast was successful. Subsequently, Revere became a professional bell founder. He obtained a large
quantity of Revolutionary War cannon from the government and, in a "swords to plowshares" fashion turned the cannon into church bells (brass cannons and bells are made from a similar mixture of
copper and tin). He remained active in the business until his death in 1818. His most famous bell still rings today in Boston's King's Chapel; an identical bell hangs in the First Unitarian Church in
Providence.
Among other bells in the Revere tradition that found their way into New England meeting houses are those made by William Blake, a Revere apprentice; his son William S. Blake; the senior Blake's
partner, Henry Hooper; and, the bells of the Holbrook family.6 There were many other fine bell founders in New England, but their surviving output is quite small, and it is fair to say that the overwhelming
majority of surviving bells in New England from the nineteenth century and earlier bear the names of Doolittle, Hanks, Meneely, Revere, Blake, Hooper, or Holbrook.
Major George Holbrook, born in Wrentham, Massachusetts on April 28, 1767, was, as far as we can establish, apprenticed to Paul Revere in Boston and probably learned bell-founding skills from that
famous individual. Holbrook's bells, we therefore believe, can be considered to be in the Hobart/Revere tradition, although there is strong evidence that Holbrook himself departed in some very important
ways from that tradition as he developed his craft.
With respect to his apprenticeship to Revere, the evidence is strong, but not fully definitive. The Grove Dictionary of Music,7 states unequivocally that Holbrook was apprenticed to Revere; The History of
Medway Mass, states in one place that Holbrook was indeed apprenticed to Revere, but "to learn the machinist and clock-maker's trades. After serving his full time he began manufacturing bells in
Brookfield, having learned the art from an old English encyclopedia." In another place the town history states, somewhat inconsistently, "It is an interesting fact that Major Holbrook in early life had been
an apprentice in the bell foundry and clock-making business to Paul Revere, of Revolutionary fame, for whom he entertained a warm friendship until his death."8 Frederick Shelley in "The Holbrook
Dynasty" (National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors Bulletin, February 1996, p.31) states more cautiously that Holbrook "had little formal schooling, in his early teens going to North End,
Boston, where he claimed to have learned the foundry, machinist, and clock-making trades as an apprentice to the famous Paul Revere."
Did, therefore, Holbrook learn the bell-making art from Revere? We know from town records that Holbrook moved to Brookfield, Massachusetts in 1795. As far as we know, he worked for Revere until that
time, although he normally would have by then been too old to have still been an apprentice. The move to Brookfield was three years after Revere cast his first bell in 1792, so it is quite possible, in fact,
probable, that for a three-year period Holbrook became at least a close observer of Revere's bell-casting enterprise. Moreover, bell founding is a complicated and difficult art. It is not likely that Holbrook
could have learned it successfully entirely from an encyclopedia without some fundamental earlier training or at least close observation of actual casting. Edward Stickney, Revere bell expert,
commenting on the molding wire pattern of the 1806 Holbrook bell cast for the Bristol Academy (now at the Old Colony Historical Society in Taunton), comments that it is like Revere's.9 This is one of
the strongest pieces of evidence to support the theory that Holbrook learned from Revere.10
If Holbrook did not gain his bell founding experience from Revere, then where else might he have learned it? Shortly after 1795 he seems to have been well-established in Brookfield as a clock-maker,
and it is unlikely that he would have become "apprenticed" in bell-making to anyone else after that date. The only other possibilities are that he visited or consulted with: 1) Isaac D oolittle, then nearing
the end of his career and his life in New Haven (not a likely occurrence); 2) Benjamin Hanks, by then back in Mansfield, Connecticut; or 3) Enos Doolittle in Hartford. The latter might have come to
Holbrook's attention because, in partnership with Jesse Goodyear, he cast a bell for a Brookfield church shortly before Holbrook arrived there. Both were working within fifty miles of Brookfield at that
time. It is unlikely, however, that Holbrook at that stage of his career would have had enough time to spend with either of these artisans to learn the complex basics of bell founding.
Holbrook did not cast his first bell until well after he was established in other trades in Brookfield, and he listed his occupation as "clock-maker" for several years there before changing it to "bell-founder
." The earliest indication that we are aware of for his entry to the bell business is in an advertisement from 1803; the first Holbrook bell we are aware of was cast in 1804. The question therefore arises
why, if he learned bell-casting from Revere and was part of Revere's bell-founding enterprise, did he wait eight or more years before casting a bell in Brookfield? Put differently, why did he continue the
clock-making business which he almost certainly learned from Revere, but not the bell-making business, if, in fact he had also learned it from Revere?
One answer may be that he did not rush to bell casting because the capital investment was much larger than for clock making: it required an air furnace, crucibles, and (unless he was re-casting a bell)
an inventory of several hundred dollars worth of copper and tin. Since he started out on his own, it would make sense that he would first accumulate capital from the clock-making business and then turn
to bell-making, even though this apparently became his first love. In fact, he combined the two by making church tower clocks with bells, several of which still exist, and it appears that he eventually
may have built the two businesses up together.
What seems most likely to us is that Holbrook was apprenticed to Revere as a machinist and clock-maker and that he became a close observer and quite possibly a participant in Revere's bell founding
during the three years before he moved to Brookfield. When he did begin bell founding on his own, it is possible that he consulted Enos Doolittle or Benjamin Hanks; it is also possible, and probably
more likely, that he consulted with Revere, his old mentor, who was still in business, and with whom he apparently continued a "warm friendship." He may also have consulted with Revere's son, Paul Jr
., another bell-founder whom Holbrook would have known from apprentice days. Paul Jr. learned the trade from his father. There is even an assertion that Holbrook entered a bell-making partnership with Paul Jr.,11 but given times and locations, this assertion has been discounted,12 and it is unlikely that they cast bells jointly.
It is also very likely that Holbrook did, in fact, search the literature on bell-making available to him at that time, perhaps the encyclopedia mentioned, and perhaps other sources. The 1803 advertisement
mentioned above, dated September 19, states, in part, the following:
George Holbrook respectfully informs the public that he carries on the business of bell-founding upon a plan recently discovered and known to very few people in this country or in Europe. A bell
made upon this plan, and rightly hung, weighing 800 pounds will give a sound as heavy, clear, agreeable to the ear, and shall be heard as far as one of 1000 pounds made in the usual way.13
Discounting the hyperbole of a business promotion and taking this advertisement largely at face value—and also agreeing with many subsequent critics that a Holbrook bell has a special musicality to it
— we conclude that Holbrook set forth on his own and attempted to depart from those previous bell-making traditions which formed his starting point. He was a musical person (who also made bass
violins —and who named his son George Handel Holbrook after the composer), and he apparently set out to improve on the Hobart-Revere tradition in bell making by casting a more musical bell.14
Bells do not sound a single note, but each individual bell sounds a chord of notes, with each separate tone emanating from a different part of the bell. Tuning a bell so these tones sound a perfect chord
is one of the most exacting tasks of bell making. One of the Holbrook catalogues said, " ... the different tones, which, sounding in unison, form one grand tone, each one of which shall be in perfect tune
and harmoniously blended together, like several instruments in the hands of masters, sounding a chord at once—it is this quality which makes the bell pure and musical."15 This provides evidence both
of Holbrook's and his son's understanding that a bell is a musical instrument and of their commitment to exacting quality. As far as we know, Holbrook, senior, was the first American bell founder to cast
a musically tuned carillon of bells.
We therefore feel quite confident in assigning Holbrook to the Hobart/Revere tradition, but we also affirm that he made a major and successful attempt to form a tradition of his own, leading to what
Frederick Shelley calls the "Holbrook Dynasty," consisting of four generations of Holbrooks who carried on the family business of casting bells and later manufacturing pipe organs.
Why Holbrook chose to move from Boston to Brookfield is not known, but the town was located on one of the major East-West roads of Massachusetts, and not far from a good supply of copper ore in
nearby Connecticut. Only about a half dozen of his Brookfield bells are known to have survived until the present, the oldest being in Taunton, Massachusetts, cast in 1804. See our list.
Holbrook cast bells in Brookfield until 1812, when he was bankrupted by co-signing a note with a person who defaulted. He farmed for a while in Meredith, New Hampshire, and returned to Wrentham.
Hearing that a bell was wanted for the church in East Medway, he volunteered his services and cast a successful bell there in 1816 in a primitive shanty. The casting is described in The History of Medway:
Through the assistance of many friends the shanty was built out of refuse lumber, and the melting furnace was built out of the condemned bricks of a neighbor's brick kiln. The bell was cast in
the presence of almost the whole population of the vicinity, in fact, so great was the number of people, and so eager were all to see such an unusual sight, that the sides of the building were
taken down and the space for the workman roped around, in order that the people might see, and the bell makers might have room to work.16
Encouraged by this successful cast, Holbrook re-entered the business that year and was joined by his son, Colonel George Handel Holbrook, who assumed the chief direction of the enterprise in 1820.
George, Senior, then 53, continued to be active in the bell-founding business with his son. Two years later, the bell was cast for the Chepachet Meeting House.
Frederick Shelley notes that "In December 1821 and January, 1823 the Holbrooks acquired land on both sides of the turnpike, (now Main Street) running through East Medway. They build a factory,
blacksmith shop, and furnace on the southwest corner of what is now Main and Spring Streets."17 If this factory was built immediately after the acquisition of land in December 1821, the Chepachet bell
, ordered after April 16 of 1822 but still dated in 1822, may have been the first cast in their new factory. How or when the half-ton bell was transported from Medway to Chepachet, we have no idea.
It is highly likely under these circumstances that both father and son participated in the casting of the Chepachet bell and, perhaps brought different talents to the task. The History of Medway
editorializes:
Major George Holbrook, who established the foundry, was a man who had great ingenuity, and who could work his way out of any mechanical predicament, and could successfully plan and lay out
the work for others, though he possessed no great faculty of doing the work himself. It is to his son, Colonel George H. Holbrook, who became an eminent musician, that is due the credit of
improving the tone of the bells and changing them from noisy machines to musical instruments.18
This may be a bit unfair to the elder Holbrook and his willingness to experiment; it is probably reasonable to conclude that the Chepachet bell and those which followed it owed their tonality to the efforts
of both father and son.
George Handel Holbrook was born on July 21, 1798, in Brookfield. His mother was Polly Wood Holbrook, whom the senior Holbrook married on November 30, 1797. According to Shelley, he learned the
clock-making and founding trade from his father and assisted him in the making of the 1816 bell in East Medway.19 The younger Holbrook, like his father, was a talented musician. He played the violin
and pipe organ, and he became very active in the musical life of his town and state. He was a member of the Handel and Hayden Society, and many of its members performed under his direction. He
ran the business until 1871, having cast over 11,000 bells, including several hundred church bells.
During his stewardship, the Holbrook foundry received many awards for the quality of its bells. As set forth in the town history of Medway:
Among other awards was the grand gold medal from the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association, of Boston, for general superiority and pure musical tone.... On another occasion the
grand gold medal of honor of the American Institute of New York, was awarded to the Holbrook foundry for undoubted superiority and general excellence, as compared with the products of others,
and for the pure and musical tones and extraordinary vibrations of their bells. In fact the very flattering testimonial from this association,which accompanied the medal, denominated the
production of the Holbrook foundry as the standard bells of America... These complimentary testimonials were from leading musical men and mechanics of the country, among whom were Dr.
Lowell Mason, Mr. George W. Webb, and Jonas Chickering, Esq., the famous piano manufacturer of Boston.20
According to Shelley, "In his prime, George Handel Holbrook was recognized as the foremost bell maker in America."21
His son, E. L. Holbrook, and grandson E. H. Holbrook later were active in the business. The Holbrook family, who also made church clocks and eventually pipe organs, continued to cast church bells
until 1880.22 The oldest surviving Medway bell that we have been able to locate as of this date is in the First Congregational Church in Milford, Massachusetts, cast in 1819.
Thus the Chepachet Meeting House bell, though not made by Revere, is closely connected to the Hobart and Revere tradition, was cast by one of the earliest, best, and most prolific bell foundries in
America, and appears to be the third oldest known surviving example of a bell cast by that foundry.
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Holbrook bell, Chepachet Meeting House
Click on photo to enlarge.
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Holbrook bell, Chepachet Meeting House,
during 1978 steeple repairs.
Irving Haynes,
photographer
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Old bell wheel, bell yoke, and spire finial,
removed during repairs, 1978.
Clifford Brown,
photographer
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As the photographs show, the bell swings freely and is hung "Liberty-Bell-style" with a large wooden yoke at the top which serves as a counterweight. This is not the original yoke. It was crafted in 1978
to duplicate as closely as possible the previous yoke, possibly the original. The bell and yoke pivot around pins at the bottom of the yoke so that the heavy yoke above the bell serves as a counterweight
to the bell when it is rung. The point of rotation is about a third of the distance down the bell. The bell and yoke are hung in a large cradle made of 5˝? x 5˝? timbers and they are turned by a wooden bell
wheel four feet in diameter around which runs the bell rope. The yoke provides excellent balance, and the bell rings with hardly any effort.
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Records indicating repairs to the
Chepachet Meeting House bell, 1851.
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Records indicating repairs to The Chepachet
Meeting House bell, 1864, just a few days before
Abraham
Lincoln's reelection as president.
Click on photo to enlarge.
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A new carriage and wheel were also made in 1978 to duplicate the previous ones. How much of the bell assembly existing in 1978 was original we do not know. There is an entry in the records of the
Proprietors for December 13, 1851 showing payment of $1.50 to Jos[eph] B. Walden for "repairs on the Bell." There is another entry for October 28, 1864, for $15.75 for "Wheel Rim for Bell"— so the rim
at any rate dated only from then. The wrought iron pieces which fasten the bell to the yoke may be original. The clapper is almost certainly original, and it is now quite worn, a circumstance of some
concern, since the bell is rung every Sunday.
We have found no bill of sale for the purchase of this bell by the church, and so we therefore do not know how much it cost. The 1,070 pound bell in the First Congregational Church of Woodstock, cast
at about the same time as the Chepachet bell, cost $400; this seems to be at the high end of Holbrook's price range; other bells, nearly as heavy, sold for prices ranging between $250 and $350. A
major part of the cost of each bell was the metal, and the differences in price may reflect fluctuations in the supply and demand of copper and tin. In one account, Holbrook paid twenty-five cents a
pound for bell metal and charged thirty-five cents a pound for casting a bell out of that same metal, so a 1000 pound bell, like the one in Chepachet, probably cost $350 on average, with $100 of that
price going to Holbrook for his expenses and profit and $250 going to his bell metal source. The cost of building the Chepachet Meeting House was probably less than $1,500, so the bell represented a
substantial percentage of the cost of the building, and that does not include the cost of transportation or raising it up into the belfry.
All in all, the purchase of a bell was a considerable investment for a small church, but the ringing of that bell became an integral part of that church's activities and the life of the surrounding community.
We know little about the history of the Chepachet bell during the 19th century. Following the custom in most New England towns, it probably served as a fire alarm. It almost certainly rang every Sunday for services.
In many New England towns, the meeting house bell was rung to announce the time, especially at noon, and perhaps as a curfew bell at dusk; often it was also tolled twice for the death of a child, four
times for the death of a woman, and six times for the death of a man; in other towns it was tolled, respectively, three, six, and nine.23 We have no record of either custom being followed in Chepachet.
We must keep in mind that in Massachusetts and Connecticut the meeting houses were built by taxpayer money, and therefore were expected to serve civic town-wide functions as well as religious
ones. In Rhode Island, with the separation of church and state, this was usually not the case, although the bell in the Meeting House of the First Baptist Church in America, according to the church
bulletin, did serve in the early days as the Providence town bell and was rung three times a day by the sexton. It is, however, probable that the Chepachet Holbrook was rung only on occasions of
relevance to the church and its members.
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Entries in Marmaduke Mowry's 1847 day book, for ringing the Chepachet Meeting House bell.
Click on photo to enlarge.
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There is a series of interesting entries in the 1847 day book of Marmaduke Mowry. He apparently served as sexton, and was the father of Seth Mowry (who later was a proprietor of the Meeting House).
These entries indicate that he rang the bell on many Sundays from June through September of 1847. Often the entry said he rang the bell "all day"; on one occasion it indicated he rang it for a funeral.
What did "all day" mean? Was it that he rang it several times for services in the morning —an hour before, fifteen minutes before, then at the beginning of the service—and then for a later gathering in
the afternoon? Or did he ring it all day more frequently for some special reason? In the summer of 1847 the United States was at war with Mexico, with its troops marching from Vera Cruz, which was
taken on March 27, 1847 to Mexico City, which was taken on September 14, 1847—basically during the time when the senior Mowry was recording in his day book that he was ringing the bell "all day"
on Sundays in Chepachet. Was this some special ringing or tolling for events relating to the war? Unfortunately we do not have other day books from Mowry with which to compare this one.
It is hard to believe that the bell did not ring on the occasion of Lee's surrender near the end of the Civil War. It probably tolled the death of Abraham Lincoln. We know that it rang joyously for most of the
day to celebrate victory at the end of World War I. Although we do not have an exact record, recollections are that it was rung to celebrate the end of World War II. It was rung jointly with other church
bells across the state at a special ceremony to mark the Millennium. It rang at a special occasion to mourn the Twin Towers tragedy. It tolled in a special ceremony once for each victim of the West
Warwick Station House fire in 2003.
And throughout the years it has rung for countless Sunday services, weddings and funerals. In recent times—until just over a year ago in 2003—the late Elton Mowry was the church's bell ringer who
lovingly attended to his duty for over twenty years, "ringing them in from the parking lot," as he once put it, every Sunday.
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The village of Chepachet from the belfry
of the Chepachet Meeting House
Click on photo to enlarge.
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Notes
- See Warren, Winthrop D., Early New England Bell Founders, an illustrated talk presented at the 1989 American Clock and Watch Museum Seminar, and again at the March 1991 National
Association of Watch and Clock Collectors Chapter 84 meeting and revised in January 1992, manuscript in possession of the Chepachet Free Will Baptist Church sent to us by Neil Goeppinger of Boone, Iowa.
- Warren.
- Warren.
- Warren states that Oscar operated the foundry until 1855. Jeff Wilkin states in the Schenectady Gazette, May 16, 2002, p.D3, that the Hanks shop shut down in 1845. Apparently, a George
Hanks also was operating a bell foundry in Cincinnati in 1851. See Springer, L. Elsinore, That Vanishing Sound, New York, Crown Publishers, p.46.
- The facts in this account of the Meneely dynasty are taken from Jeff Wilkin's impressive piece in the Schenectady Gazette, May 16, 2002, D1, D3.
- The material on Hobart and Revere comes from Warren, op. cit., and from telephone conversations with Edward Stickney and Neil Goeppinger. The material on the Blakes and on Hooper come
from Warren and from Springer, pp.43-45.
- See the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Volume 2, Stanley Sadie, ed., London, Macmillan, 1980, page 436.
- See Jameson, Rev. E. O., The History of Medway Mass. 1713 to 1885; published by the town, 1886, p.391. p.198, and p.391.
- Paper entitled Holbrook Bells by Edward Stickney, sent to the Chepachet Free Will Baptist Church in 1997.
- Another piece of evidence, probably less definitive, is the similarity of the inscriptions on early Revere and Holbrook bells: "THE LIVING TO THE CHURCH I CALL AND TO THE GRAVE I
SUMMON ALL" (Revere) and "I TO THE CHURCH THE LIVING CALL AND TO THE GRAVE I SUMMONS ALL." (Holbrook). See Stickney, Edward and Evelyn, The Bells of Paul Revere, his sons & grandsons, Bedford, Mass., 1976, p.15, p.30.
- See Springer, op. cit. p.43. For a more extended version of the story of the alleged partnership between Paul Revere Jr. and Holbrook, see Speare, Eva A., Historic Bells in New Hampshire, p.34.
According to this account, which is based on a collection of Holbrook family news clippings, themselves based on family recollections, Paul Revere Jr. withdrew from his father's firm around 1800
and made bells until his death in 1813 with the trademark "Revere Boston" on them. At some point during this time it is stated that Holbrook joined in partnership. Although Holbrook appears to
have been in Brookfield during all of this time, and Revere Jr. was in Boston or its vicinity, some form of association between the two cannot entirely be ruled out—possibly financial, possibly for
marketing, possibly for one to supply the other with raw materials or parts, and so forth. There can be little doubt that they knew each other. Significantly, Holbrook appears to have started
casting bells after Revere Jr.'s firm was started in 1800. The timing would be right for Revere Jr. somehow to have assisted Holbrook in getting his start in bell casting, perhaps in early partnership
of some sort or another, though it is highly unlikely that they cast bells in the same location.
Another piece of evidence of a possible partnership is the 1809 bell in the Town Hall in Hampstead, New Hampshire. According to the deed to the town it was made by George Holbrook of
Brookfield, Mass., but, "Revere Boston" is inscribed on the bell. Did Holbrook cast a bell in Brookfield for Paul Revere Jr. in Boston? See Stickney, 1976, p.30.
- See Shelley, Frederick, "The Holbrook Dynasty," National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors Bulletin, February 1996, p.31.
- Reed, Roger Everett, "Brookfield's Claim to Fame as Center of Bell Casting," The Springfield Sunday Union and Republican, Springfield, Massachusetts, May 18, 1930, pp.3-4.
- Springer, p.43.
- Reed, p.7.
- Jameson, p.198.
- Shelley, p.32
- Jameson, p.199.
- Shelley, p.32.
- Jameson, pp.198-199.
- Shelley, p.32-33.
- For an excellent discussion of the family's clock-making and pipe organ building, see Shelley, pp.33-40.
- See, for example, Kelly, J. Frederick, Early Connecticut Meetinghouses, New York, Columbia University Press, 1948, Volume I, p.320.
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