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My grandfather was bivouacked in France with his U.S. Cavalry unit in WWI. During a raging blizzard, his horse broke loose, terrified. When he finally found her, he tied her lead to a short branch in the ground nearby. Under the next morning's blazing sun, the snow melted away, but he couldn't find his horse anywhere - until, hearing a distant whinny, he looked up to see her dangling from the village church spire.   Meet my grandfather, Arthur J. "Pop" Murphy. He was a fifer, a WWI US Cavalry veteran, a founding member of the Mount Vernon NY VFW...

My mother was bailed out of jail by my father, and promptly fell in love. Post 596 drum corps jail, that is. The Mount Vernon NY VFW Post 596 drum corps was having a fundraising dance that night in 1950 when one of Pop Classey’s drum students bought the largest bucketful of tokens he could afford to rescue Pop Murphy’s daughter from dance hall jail. Pop Classey (Edward A.) and Pop Murphy (Arthur J.) were founding members of the 596 drum corps, a drummer and a fifer going back to 1930 in a corps that Gus Moeller would join as...

Why are we so interested in the Harmony Company? We know vintage Harmony guitars are prized instruments, but we weren't as familiar with their drums. So we were intrigued to see the label inside this bass drum shell: “Harmony Drum manufactured by The Harmony Company”, along with some patent dates, and in handwriting, “W. E. Patrick Jr., Newport RI Sept 1910”.        It turns out that the founder of the company, William Schultz, worked at the Knapp Drum Company in Chicago until it was bought out by Lyon & Healy; he continued to work as a foreman there until 1892,...

There are many internet blogs and individuals posting information on the Brown family and their drums, and most agree on details, but not all, so here we'll stick with some basic sources to share that are relevant to this 1841 drum, #2163, that we have for sale in our web store. In The Browns of Wintonbury, the author Frederick Hesketh writes regarding the Brown family of drum makers: The mystery of when the first drum was made may never be solved. Virtually all known and verified Brown Drums have a distinctive label and date inside the drum opposite the air...

What does the inlaid star on this J. W. Pepper drum have to do with the one on the  C. & F. Soistmann drum noted in our last post? We don't know for sure about the star, but the makers certainly have some interesting connections. C(onrad) & F(rederick) Soistmann were making drums in Philadelphia from about 1863; James W. Pepper founded his company there in 1876. By 1892 J. W. Pepper and Adolph Soistmann (son of Frederick) were in business together as Pepper acquired the factory and trade name of Adolph's Excelsior Drum company, with Adolph staying on as manager....