Fire at the Bevin bell factory of East Hampton CT has burned it to the ground

[BellToyBoy]

The news from East Hampton CT is bad, horribly bad. The Bevin bell factory burned to the ground Saturday night. On Sunday the phone calls and emails from friends, relatives and fellow collectors around the country started arriving here. Bill Jones, a mechanical bank collector from Connecticut was the first to tell me. I quickly checked the internet for confirmation. It was true. I called a friend in East Hampton, Jay Hansen to see if by any chance the office was saved. He got back to me with the news. It was all gone.

They had been in the bell making business since 1832.They are famous for creating the bell used in the film "It's a wonderful Life," for the New York Sock Exchange bell, for bicycle bells, hand bells and sleigh bells.

Many of the bell makers of East Hampton learned their trade in the Bevin factory. There was one patent for a bell toy by Isaac Bevin in 1876. Their focus was bells and not the bell toys. That does not mean Bevin was not important to bell toys. The mechanism for the bicycle bell showed up in many bell toys and toy telephones. Cross pollination of manufacturing knowledge, techniques and experience between Bevin and the other bell making shops was common. As just one small example, bell toy maker and bicycle saddle maker, John C. Wells, learned his trade at Bevin Bros.

Bevin was the last survivor of an era of small bell making in East Hampton that started flourishing with the Barton introduction of the technique of making sleigh bells with the jinglet cast into the bell, saving the time consuming task of making the bell in two parts and welding it together. Many companies sprang up in East Hampton from that small inspired beginning. The Bevin Bros. Mfg. Co. starting with three brothers, Abner, Chauncey, and William, later adding one more, Philo, would become the largest and through frugality, innovation, and doggedness survived the many changes in the industry. Because of environmental regulations the cast brass bells of the 1800s were no longer made there when the company burned down. Stamped steel bells were being made there, a process that had originated in East Hampton at the N N Hill Brass Mfg. Co. in the late 1800s. Stanley Bevin had recently said he hoped to see the Bevin Manufacturing Company celebrate its 200^th anniversary.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/02/family_business/source/9.htm

The Bevin family propped up many of the bell toy makers when they were floundering in the early 1900s. They eventually owned Gong Bell. Gong Bell Mfg. Co. was shut down when the Bevin family decided it was no longer profitable to be in the bell toy making business. The era of plastic toys, which Gong Bell had been slow to embrace, and foreign imports were blamed for the downfall of Gong Bell, though domestic completion was also fierce and probably equally responsible. Fisher Price was one of the few toy makers to weather the transitions. Competition was nothing new.  In the 1800s complaints by bell and bell toy makers of East Hampton to Congress imposed tariffs on imports to protect these industries.  Adapting to changing markets was also nothing new. During WWI no metal could be used on bell toys so the switch was made to wooden toys. Wood and lithographed paper would be a major component of later toys by Gong Bell.  I had always hoped to see the Bevin archives to see if there were documents related to Gong Bell, N.N. Hill Brass, Starr Bros. and the other bell toy makers.

We’ll never know now what we’ve lost. I think I know what the people of Egypt felt when the Library at Alexandria was destroyed. Like the burned out buildings I feel hollow. It’s like knowing there’s someone that just died you had always hoped to know better.

The Bevin family gave the land the museum sits upon to the Chatham Historical Society (CHS). Some of the items that had been in the office at Bevin were recently moved on loan to the CHS museum.  If the building had not recently been expanded the display of some of those items from Bevin Mfg. Co. would not have been possible. It’s a wonderful but small snapshot through a very small window to what has been lost.

I had always hoped to see the archives of the Bevin bell factory. I’ve only seen the outside of the Bevin factory. According to my friend Jeff Bell they had a large repository of archives in the office building. I had tried to see the inside but Stanley Bevin only responded once to my calls and letters. He called me and said, “Watrous, I’m going to sue you!” He went on to tell me how he had been sleigh riding down the hill toward near the railroad toward the Watrous house on Watrous Street and broke his leg. I protested that I’m not related to the David W. Watrous who built that house. (He was one of the founders of the East Hampton Bell Company and later founded the Watrous Manufacturing Co.) I’m related to the Clifford M. Watrous that worked at Gong Bell. He replied simply, “You’re all related!” I thought he was wrong, but I’ve come to see how there is a lot of truth in what he said. It seemed everyone in East Hampton was related by only a few degrees of separation. One could also say we were all related by a shared history. It’s this relationship that makes the Bevin factory loss personal to so many.

The Starr Bros. and  N N Hill factory buildings are the only bell toy maker factory buildings still standing relatively intact.  The residences of the founders of these enterprises and the workers now look out over vacant sites and remnants of where many other bell making shops once stood such as the East Hampton Bell Company. Without these companies the town would never have looked as it does today.

Matt Bevin, who took over the reins of the company a few years ago recently told a reporter that he will try to make bells again in East Hampton, Belltown.  I wish him and the Bevin family and all the workers there success. Thinking of East Hampton the Belltown, without an ongoing bell making industry rings hollow. I hope the can-do Yankee ingenuity spirit lives on with a new generation of Bevins making bells.