10-20-2015

The mystery of the missing N. N. Hill Brass Co. buildings Part 2.

Some N. N. Hill Brass Co. images and dates create a mystery of disappearing buildings.

Visual Clues

In the 1880s, before Norman N. Hill purchased

the property, H. E. Niles had a coffin trimming

concern on the south side of the stream. The

buildings can be seen in a 1880 drawing with a

Birds Eye View. The Niles buildings can be seen

to the left/south of the stream on Niles Ave. N.

N. Hill occupied the former Niles building

before building the brick factories.

In this postcard image looking

west across the N. N. Hill Brass

Co. upper pond, the brick shop

with the tower is in the center.

One of the buildings to the south

side of the stream (to the left) is

visible. On the other side of the

shop is the brick office building.

Telephone poles can be seen to

the right, along Skinner Street.

Multiple telephone lines and the

wood cross members to support

them were installed in East

Hampton around 1902, so this

photo was taken sometime after

1902.

This photo looking upstream, or east, behind

the former N. N. Hill Brass Co. buildings was

taken in 2003 by Robert Watrous. It shows the

bridges that would have at one time

connected the brick factory buildings to the

buildings on the right side, or south side, of

the Pocotopaug stream where the former Niles

or N. N. Hill buildings had been. Note how the

bridge in the background is connected to the

third floor of the factory, and on the other

side of the stream the bridge ends up in the

air.

When did the N. N. Hill buildings get built, and when did the buildings meet their demise?

The Niles Parmalee & Co. buildings date to approximately 1853

From History of Middlesex County, Connecticut: With Biographical Sketches of Its Prominent Men, J.B. Beers & Company, 1884

- Middlesex County (Conn.), “Niles, Parmelee & Co.—The next buildings in order on the stream (downstream from Watrous

Mfg. Co.) are those formerly used by Niles, Parmelee & Co. for the manufacture of bells. They were erected about 1853. Later,

they were used by D. B. Niles & Sons for the manufacture of bells and coffin trimmings, and still later by the Albany Casket

Company for the manufacture of caskets and cofiin trimmings. The buildings are at present unused, but are in good repair.”

N. N. Hill rents the Niles buildings

It’s easy to see how N. N. Hill managed to get reestablished so quickly after the fire destroyed his shop, when just upstream

from his former building was a factory that was in good repair and unoccupied.

N. N. Hill considers purchasing the Niles property

In 1892 or 1893, (I have to check the ledger photos for the letter date) N. N. Hill was renting a property from Niles, and

paying for building repairs on it. N. N. Hill sent Niles a letter with a decision not to purchase the property. From N. N. Hill Brass

Co. ledgers, at U.C. S. B., Box 1 Vol. 9/21/1892-6/7/1893 (photo’d by RKW check file for the date on the letter) Mr. Hill

eventually bought the Niles factory property. (A note of caution, this letter may not be about the factory property. )There is

probably a deed record. I don’t think Norman would have built a building before he bought the land.

According to History of Middlesex County, Conn. With Biographical Sketches…, Dan B. (Niles) was a bell manufacturer and

carried on the business for a number of years in connection with his sons, under the firm name of D. B. Niles & Sons. He died

in 1879.” That means Norman must have bought the property from the sons. According to the Tighe & Bond report N.N. Hill

transferred the property to W. N. Hill in 1894. The Tighe & Bond report didn’t go back any earlier.

The first brick factory building with the tower plus two other brick buildings predate 1897 based on the following note:

In 1890 July 15, The 20x30 feet, two story building of N. N. Hill burned down. “Within two months Mr. Hill was again

established in a new factory, and from this time on the business has increased with phenomenal rapidity. Within eight years,

starting on an insignificant scale, an enterprise has been developed which is today the largest exclusive bell plant in the world.

Mr. Hill is the sole proprietor. The plant (This was written in 1897. RKW) occupies three large brick buildings and has today the

capacity for over fifty thousand bells per day.” (From Men of Progress, Biographical Sketches and Portraits, Leaders in Business

and Professional Life in and of the State of Connecticut, New England Magazine Boston copyrighted 1897 by Richard

Herndon, page 254, Hill, Norman Newton.)

The 1897 date of the article above pins down that the brick buildings were built by this date. The notes below may indicate

they came around 1891 or sometime after 1892 or 1893.

On March 9th, 1891 N. N. Hill was inquiring about the price for “good pine ceiling 3 or 4 inches wide. We want something

suitable for ceiling for an office.” Was this for the new brick office building or an office in the building Hill was renting? (From

a note on N. N. Hill letterhead, to Lincoln & Barr (? Spelling) .signed by N. N. Hill, in the collection of Robert Watrous)

By 1898 the office building was added

The 1898 sleigh bell catalog did not show the office building. The office building could have been built before the catalog of

1898 was sent out, and N. N. hill just hadn’t changed the drawing yet and printed the catalog with the drawing they had.

In 1898 the Illustrated Edition of the Penny Press had an article on East Hampton. The drawing for the N N Hill Brass Company

was the same as the one used in the 1898 slegh bell catalog, showing the buildings on both sides of the stream. It also stated

in the article about N. N. Hill, “A new office

buiding twenty-four by forty feet has been

completed.” This dates the office building

construction to sometime around 1897 -1898.

1900 a foundry was added

1900 “The N. N. Hill Brass Company located at

East Hampton report having constructed a one-

story frame iron foundry, 30x48 feet, at the

estimated cost of $800.” Public Documents of

the State of Connecticut, Bureau of Labor

Statistics, page 106, Vol. II, 1900, printed by

order of the State of General Assembly

Hartford 1901.

1910 a brick addition was added ?

According to the Tighe & Bond report N N

Hill added a three story brick pier wing 100 ft

x 41 ft to the factory around 1910. The Tighe and Bond Report has some useful information, however I have found some

errors, so one should be careful to corroborate the report with other sources, and be careful in the interpretation. Their source

was the Society for Industrial Archaeology.

Newspaper accounts put the addition of the third floor later, 1949, and photographs show the distinct architectural change

of the third floor. Perhaps a one floor addition was put up in 1910 and one floor was added to in 1941, or perhaps the two

story addition was put up in 1941. There’s a discrepancy. This discrepancy might be resolved by checking the Sanborn maps.

The foundry was shown on the 1903 Sanborn map.

From the early 1900s till the fires in the 1940s the buildings remain, the uses change slightly

In the 1925 Sanborn Map the building configuration stayed the same and one of the buildings on the south side of the creek

is devoted to tumbling processes.

From the Tighe & Bond Report SECTION 4, INITIAL ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS, Environmental Site Overview. Pages 4-10 &

4-11 :

“Hill’s first shop burned in 1890 and he began construction of the extant brick-pier factory, 3-story and 100 ft x 35 ft with

stair tower and near-flat roof. The 1-story brick foundry, 128 ft x 30 ft with monitor roof, and 2-story brick office with hip roof

also date from 1890. Hill added a 3-story brick pier wing, 100 ft x 41 ft, to the factory around 1910 (Society for Industrial

Archeology).

The 1903 Sanborn Map depicts the NN Hill industrial complex centered on the Pocotopaug Creek. The name of the industrial

complex is listed as National Novelty Corporation N.N. Hill Brass Company. This is the same toy consortium as Gong Bell

Company. The foundry is illustrated running perpendicular to the Creek with a blast furnace and chimney located inside the

foundry. A cupola was located to the southwest of the building. Presumably, the cupola was used for remelting metals, usually

iron, before casting.

To the east of the foundry, north of the Creek, the 3-story brick pier factory is shown. The first floor was used as a machine

shop. A dynamo is located in the northeast corner of the building. The second floor was used for assembling. The third floor

was used for plating and buffing.

A stock house is located south of the river. This two-story storage facility kept wood shavings and boxing on the first floor with

unknown storage on the second floor.

The remaining building was a two-story brick office building and storeroom. This building was to the north and adjacent to

Skinner Street. The power for the complex was listed as water and electric, the heat was provided by steam, lights by

electricity, and power was provided by coal. There was a coal pile and iron storage area located near Pocotopaug Creek. The

This early photograph of the N. N. Hill buildings shows the office in the front.

It predates the additions to the shop off to the left. Looking closely the pipe

for the water power can be seen to the left behind the building. The

photograph is from the collection of the Chatham Historical Society.

1908 Sanborn Map details virtually the same features as the 1903. The name of the building has been changed to the

Hardware and Woodenware Manufacturing Company N.N. Hill Brass Company Branch. After the dissolution of the National

Novelty Corporation, many toy manufactures joined the Hardware and Woodenware Manufacturing Company. Similar to its

predecessor, this consortium dissolved shortly after its creation.

The 1925 Sanborn Map shows a virtually unchanged industrial complex. The name of the industry is now N.N. Hill Brass

Company Manufacturer of Brass Goods.

There is a building, located to the south of the Creek, dedicated to tumbling processes. Review of the 1934 aerial photograph

shows the buildings as mostly the same configuration.”

1941, May, an addition was made to an existing building 100 by 40 making the structure two stories high.

In June 1944, a fire swept through and caused considerable damage to the top floor of a 2 ½ story wooden warehouse. (see

article above) Note that it did not destroy the building. Most likely the building was repaired, because later a bridge would

connect this building to the third floor of the brick shop built five years later.

In July of 1946 a fire destroyed a paint shop, described as a 30’ x 30’ wooden structure. (see article above)

In August of 1949 a thrird floor addition to the factory was added.

The N. N. Hill Brass Co. office

building is in the foreground.

Looking past the brick buildings to

the right on can see a tall dark

building that was across the stream

from the small brick building behind

the main factory. The main factory

had the third floor addition

completed before this photograph

was taken.

Courtesy of Barbara Sargent

Property Sale History

According to the Tighe & Bond report: Sale History, Real Estate, Transaction Year

Leroy J. Goff to SGOFF Enterprises, LLC 2004

Chevron USA to Goff 1979

Red Wing Oil to Chevron 1958

W&N Hill to Chevron 1953

NN Hill to W&N Hill 1894

Written clues not pursued yet:

The East Hampton News online

archive has the date range of 1887 to

1888, and 1932 to 1956. This of

course leaves out some critical periods

of East Hampton bell and bell toy

making history. There are some

recollections of earlier articles in the

newspapers after 1932, but they are

spotty. There’s no mention of the

construction of the first brick buildings

in the East Hampton News. The dates

of construction fall through the 1888

to 1932 gap. There may be articles in

the Penny Press.

There might be an answer to the

construction dates of the brick buildings in the cash ledgers of N. N. Hill at the Connecticut Historical Society. They cover the

years 1896-1900. I have not scanned or reviewed all of them yet.

What happened to the office building?

The date of the demise of the office building remains unknown. Surprisingly, it’s easier to find information on events that

happened over a hundred years ago than it is to find out about something that happened within the past fifty years.

What happened to the buildings on the south side of the stream in the 1800s? I don’t think much happened at all.

All of the evidence confirms that the wooden buildings, formerly used by Niles on the south side of the stream existed and

were being used by N. N. Hill until the fires in 1944, and 1946.

Why did N.N. Hill have the buildings removed from the drawing?

This photograph, courtesy of Barbara Sargent, shows the N. N. Hill Brass Co. buildings after the

third floor addition, placing the date sometime after 1949.

N. N. Hill had the buildings removed from the drawing some time after 1898 and before 1903. Why they were removed from

the drawing remains a mystery. All we are left with is speculation. There are several possible reasons for N. N. Hill to change

the drawing:

Perhaps N. N. Hill did not want to show the buildings because he was not using these buildings for bell making then. His

advertisement showed the buildings being “Devoted Exclusively to the Manufacture of Bells.” Perhaps he was trying to

differentiate his business from that of Bevin Bros. or his new competitor, New Departure.

Perhaps the buildings, built in 1853, which were “in good repair” in 1880s, were in disrepair by the 1890s, and N. N. Hill

anticipated razing them, but later found them handy for other uses as his business continued to grow. Floods might have

explained a sudden deterioration in the condition of these buildings, but major floods happened in 1869, 1934, 1936, and

1955. None of these dates would explain a sudden deterioration between 1880 and 1900.

Perhaps the former Niles buildings were all destroyed before the new drawing was made, and after the drawing was made

new wooden buildings were built on the far side of the stream. This theory can be dismissed as newspaper accounts would

have chronicled either the destruction of the old buildings or the construction of the new buildings.

One could speculate that someone might have been renting/using the buildings on the south side of the stream in the late

1800s and N. N. Hill wanted to focus the drawing on the buildings N. N. Hill was using and were devoted to bell

manufacturing. If that was so, who was using the buildings, for what time period, and when did Norman start reusing them

in the 1900s? This is pure speculation, and I’ve found no evidence to support it. The Sanborn maps do not show any other

firms were occupying the buildings. Some may speculate that Watrous Manufacturing Co. was using the buildings, but this

does not make sense for the pre-1900 timeframe, as Watrous Mfg. Co. was using their buildings on Main Street when a fire

broke out in in one of them in 1900, and they quickly rebuilt their facilities. Many have speculated that Watrous Mfg. Co. and

N. N. Hill Brass were “under the same roof” when both of the firms were branhces during the consolidation under the

National Novelty Corp. and Hardware and Woodenware era of 1903 to 1912. This period comes after the drawings were done

so it does not help explain the drawing change.

Because truth can be stranger than fiction I’m sure there are other possible explainations I have not thought of.

The mystery prompted by the drawing changes pushed me to look at the evolution of the N. N. Hill buildings in a way I would

not have without the mystery. The history of the buildings reflects the history of the firm.

Life is good,

Bob Watrous

Special thanks to:

Middlesex County Historical Society, Debby Shapiro for the Illustrated Penny Press article

East Hampton Public Library for the acccess to the East Hampton News articles

Chatham Historical Society, for their photograph.

Barbara Sargent, for the N. N. Hill building photographs.

Tighe&Bond for the environmental report and the Sanborn Maps information.