Rare painted pine and maple drum, Benjamin Brown (1748-1834) Bloomfield, Hanford County, Connecticut, dated 1812

Paint on pine and mape, with deerskin, cowhide, brass, and rope

Inscribed on interior wall, pencil: Benj. Brown, Bloomfield, Conn. (Uncle of ND.) mf.1812 for N.D. Phelps Grandpa of H.A. Phelps

Ed and Mildred Bohne, Newmanstown, Pennsylvania, 1974

American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum, p. 178, fig. 147

Appears to be in excellent condition. Deerskin head has split.
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Drums, marching music, and regimental displays played a central role during military functions, seasonal festivals, and holiday celebrations within a number of American communities during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Various percussion instruments, including drums, were also called for in religious observances, secular and fraternal ceremonies, and popular and folk musical compositions. Regimental marching, essential to early military exercises and tactical warfare, was regulated by drumbeat, and local militias maintained drum corps or single drummers to provide this important aspect of military discipline. Drums were regularly produced by amateur makers for their own use and also were supplied by professional manufacturers, who advertised their wide range of parade and military drums. Benjamin Brown and several members of his extended family established one of the best known of these drum manufactories in New England.

This drum follows the basic construction techniques utilized by most drum makers, and its joinery relates closely to that of early coopering and bandbox manufacturing. Its wide wooden side is fashioned from a single, thinly milled sheet of pine, which was bent around a round form while still green and supple. Its ends are overlapped and secured with glue and fine metal brads. The top and bottom edges of the side are reinforced and fitted with bent flat maple rims, similar in form to barrel hoops, which also secure the stretched deerskin heads to the sides. These rims are drilled with regularly spaced holes and laced with rope-securing lines, which keep the components of the drum tightly assembled but also adjustable and loose enough to provide the vibrations that augment the drum's resonance when beaten.¹

The paint decoration on this drum is closely related to the traditions of painted tin. Painted tin decoration enjoyed a concentrated popularity during the early nineteenth century in both Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and the techniques, patterns, and execution are closely related across the regions. The decoration of this example is similar to designs created among the Pennsylvania Germans and incorporates similar motifs of round, stylized roses, comma swags, and brushwork leafage. A small peephole, drilled into the side of the drum's wall and framed by a brass tack and painted surround, reveals the interior inscription, which indicates its Connecticut origins. -J.L.L.

¹ The lacings were probably originally made of thin leather or braided hemp twine.