Old Home Days in East Hampton CT - 2008 the 200th anniversary of bell making in East Hampton

[Robert Watrous]

On Saturday July 12th East Hampton had their Old Home Days parade in town. I learned from Jeff Bell, then living in Texas, that this was This year is the 200th anniversary of bell making in East Hampton, Belltown, CT so I expected there would be someting special about the parade and Old Home Days this year. Being from New Jersey I'd never experienced an East Hampton Old Home Days so I went up to Connecticut. It was a wonderful home town parade, and lots of people had fun at the carnival afterwards, but during the parade there was no banner, float, or mention of bells other than the logos on the fire trucks and ambulances, and the Belltown Appliance store float. You wouldn't know about the 200th anniversary by watching the parade. I was dismayed and disapointed. To commemorate the 200th anniversary of bell making in East Hampton the Historical Society had a bell made by Bevin, and were selling it at the fair, and a banner was hung on the building. While Historical Society members would have noticed these things, most people could be excused for missing the fact that this was any special year. Even the Herald Press newspaper made no mention of the 200th anniversary in their coverage the next day.

After the parade the fair started up, and the Historical Society Mueum opened it's doors to visitors. The Historical Society has just completed a new building, and they are rightly proud of it's construction, all done by volunteers. The building, inside and out is quite nice, and the displays are very nicely arranged. There are many bell toys, mostly donated by Richard Mueller. There is a large display of bells in an antique display case donated by the Bevin Bros. Most people will think they have seen the entire museum after seeing what is in the first building, missing what is in the back. That would be a shame, because there is a treasure of Gong Bell things there, including the old Gong Bell Co. sign, numerous photos and many toys, again most donated by Richard Mueller, an avid collector of pull toys from Mississippi who also made a significant contribution to the Society for the building construction. After seeing the front building I knew there was more to see, but when I tried to find my way into the old building where the Gong Bell things are displayed, I found I had to go outside to get to it as they did not attach the old building to the new building.

I videotaped my relative, Ted Willerford, a grandson of Clifford Watrous who ran Gong Bell and patented numerous bell toys, describing the employees at Gong Bell that were in the many photos he had donated to the historical society. One picture shows a race on Lake Pocotopaug with a huge mock up of a Gong Bell bell toy of the era. Ted knew the person in the boat. Ted knew many of the people in the pictures. I asked the woman who was monitoring the room as to whether there was any record of who was in the photos and she thought some might have some names on the back. Perhaps some day they will add names to the photos. Hopefully it will happen soon, while some people can still tell them who is in them. Ted pointed out one toy, and said that his father had come to him one day and asked Ted to draw an outline for a toy on a block of wood. Ted drew the outline of the Marching Bear. Ted said he didn't like clowns, but liked the animal toys. His outline was then taken to an artist. The picture of the marching bear that he helped design is shown above.

I had asked the Historical Society to be able to set up a small table on their grounds off to the side under a tree, to show some bell toy history which would compliment their collection. I brought with me several boxes of documents including original catalogs and papers, and some of my best Watrous Manufacturing and Gong Bell bell toys. The Historical Society did not allow me to show them. They didn't express any interest in seeing what I had brought with me. One member told me to go set up my table in the fairgrounds. I was disheartened. I had brought some things to donate but left them in the car with everything else.

A big bell sits outside the museum. One might assume it was made in Belltown, but it wasn't. It was made by Meneely Bells. It is inscribed with the company name and the date 1901. Lorraine Bevin told me it had arrived in a pile of scrap metal that the Bevin plant had purchased. It was set aside, and then it had weathered the decades in the Bevin foundry yard. Mrs. Bevin thought that it may have adorned the Meneely company plant in Troy New York before it closed.

On Sunday Ted gave me a tour of town. While I took notes, he showed me where all the bell makers had lived, and described what the town looked like when he was a child. He described which parts of the Gong Bell factory were used for which purposes when he worked there during summers as a child. He told me lots of details down to this little gem; back in the 1950s Gong Bell had their toilets set up right over, and drained directly into the Pocotopaug Creek! That part of Gong Bell burned down long ago. The water tower at Gong Bell has just been torn down, and the hulk of it was lying next to the track hoe when we were there. A large mound of soil and rocks now covers the spot where the East Hampton Bell Company used to be. Little by little the bell manufacturing history is disapearing.

Ted and I went to the Lakeview Cemetary where the residents can't appreciate the great view they have. Ted told me about many of the residents he remembered. He had watched the parade from the cemetary and he lamented that he knew more people in the cemetary than in the parade. The names there were very familiar to me, Watrous, Conklin, Bevin, and Starr, all great names in the history of Belltown.

I was introduced by Ted to Lorraine Bevin. (Larry as her friends in town know her) She's the mother of Stanley Bevin, who now runs Bevin Brothers, the only surviving bell maker in East Hampton. She and Chauncey Bevin donated the land to the Historical Society. She is a font of information, and she told stories nonstop for hours. She has many original bells and photos of the Bevin foundry. She told us a story of one Old Home Days parade Bevin had built a float for. They were going to pour a bell on the float during the parade. There was a fire with a bellows, and the numerous stages of the bell were all in place so it would look like the newly poured bell was being pulled out at the end of the parade. The bell being poured would take much longer to cool than the duration of the parade. Around the float were numerous photos of the Bevin history. Before the parade started, the float caught fire. The fire trucks could not reach the float because the roads were blocked off with traffic. People were getting buckets of water from a mill pond to try to put out the fire. The photos were rescued. I'd love to find out which year that was, and see whether it was reported on in the Penny Press.

It was good to get back together with Nelson Gustine. We stayed at the Nelson Family Campground and my family had a great time. I hope we get back up there again later this summer.

Life is good, Bob