N. N. Hill letters at the Davidson Library, U. of Southern California.

[Robert Watrous]

In August 2008 I went to the University of Califonia, Davidson Library, Santa Barbara / Goleta, to see the collection of N. N. Hill Brass. Mfg. Co. letters The collection of 25 volumes of 1890s and early 1900s letters is normally stored in another branch of the library. Edward C. Fields, Supervisor, Information Services Department of Special Collections and Library Assistant Jennifer Mundy Johnson arranged to have the boxes in Goleta when I arrived.

There was a lot to look at and I only had two days, so I'm sure I've missed some gems. I scanned through the index in each volume looking for those companies in I was familiar with, and then went to those pages only. I found numerous letters to Bevin, East Hampton Bell Mfg. Co., Watrous, Starr Bros. Bell Co., Bliss, Blakeslee, Barton A. W., Hubley, Kenton, Veasey, Voight Starr & Co., Fallows, Kirby, Wilkins, Harris Toy, Sears, Borgfeldt, and Gong Bell. I looked for any J&E Stevens connections but found none.

N. N. Hill used a carbon copy system and then bound all the copies. These are only the outgoing letters. Some are in response to incoming letters or phone calls so often the letters do not tell the whole story. Some letters were so light as to be illegible, but the majority are wall preserved. Considering these are over 100 years old, it's amazing they exist. The collection was purchased from an antique dealer in Paolo Alto California in 1975. Why they ended up in California remains a mystery.

There were some nice surprises. Some letters corroborated some ancient histories, and some of course just added more questions.

N. N. Hill was doing a lot of the castings for Gong Bell, something that I never expected, as I knew they did a tot of stamped steel, but hadn't known they were also casting for others. They were making the castings for the dray.

In an August 6th, 1891 handwritten letter to Gong Bell, N. N. Hill accused Watrous and Kirby Manufacturing of copying their line, obviously outraged he wrote "In our mind a man (if he can be called a man) that will wait for someone else to get up a line of goods and then steal all of the best ones is a mean sneaking thief and a fit subject only to carry grits to the hogs." The next day N. N. Hill wrote to his patent attorney to request filing a patent for a rattle with a bell on both ends. A later letter to the Bell Manufacturer's Association recommends contacting Watrous and Kirby to get them in as members.

In 1897 they wrote to Arthur Bailey, then in Cobalt Conn., "By this mail I am sending to you the pictures, and Mr Abbe and I have marked on the back those we would like." Arthur Bailey designed many cast iron toys for J&E Stevens and Gong Bell. It seems N. N. Hill was having Mr. Bailey design some of their toys, but which ones?

http://www.library.ucsb.edu/speccoll/collections/k_o_guides.html#N

A few sample pages are shown.

Life is good,
Bob