The Violin Makers
By Matthew Powers
Fiddle music, also known as New England fiddle music or Yankee fiddling, has a long and rich history in Vermont and in our local area. The tradition evolved over many years, incorporating both local and immigrant group influences during the 19th and 20th centuries. The fiddle (or violin) has been a popular instrument and has been heard at dances, special events, stage shows, and other social gatherings. The playing of music, specifically fiddle music, has always been an essential part of life and culture in New England and the tradition continues today. Along with the evolution of the music playing tradition were the violin makers who developed an unique style of fiddle, known as American folk violins. The violin makers often incorporated local materials and adapted standard designs to suit their needs. The makers of these instruments had strong woodworking skills and a talent for making these instruments. Often times these makers were farmers and sugar makers who would pass along their knowledge and skills to apprentices and family members. The violins that have survive today showcase the varying degrees of expertise and ingenuity of the local makers, as well as a variety of sound elements. The following is a current list of people in Woodstock that are known to have made violins. We hope that this list is fluid, and that we continue to learn more about the violin making tradition and perhaps others that might have contributed to it.
Gaius Cobb (1807-1895):
Gaius Palmer Cobb was, among other things, a shoemaker, carpenter, farmer, apiarist, and violin maker. He won top prizes at the local county fair for his honey. He was the son of a fairly successful farmer. After his father’s death, Gaius used his share of the estate to buy a small farm but proved a poor farmer and generally lost money farming. The farm was sold in 1854 after which Gaius worked at the A. W. Whitney machine shop in West Woodstock for awhile. The Cobb family’s situation could most often be characterized as hand-to-mouth living with shoemaking and beekeeping as the chief sources of income. He later moved to the Flat (West Woodstock) where he had a workshop. Gaius made many violins, which he sold and gifted. He apparently signed all of his violins as well as numbering them. Gaius’ son, Charles Morris Cobb, stated in his diaries that Gaius also made instrument cases for musicians. He might have also taught how to make violins to Don Thomas, who lived close to Gaius on Rose Hill. The Woodstock History Center has a Gaius Cobb violin and case in their collection.
Violin.
Tiger maple and birchwood. Marked: No.18 Gaius P. Cobb Woodstock Vermont July 21 A.D. 1892.
Collection of the Woodstock History Center. Gift in memory of Mr. Fred Gates, father of the donor Mrs. Maurice Rogers. 72-55.1a
Interior label of Gaius Cobb violin.
Gauis Cobb vi0lin
Private Collection.
Charles Cobb (1835- 1903)
Charles Morris Cobb was the only son of Gaius P. and Lucia Cobb. Both his parents were musically inclined and played several instruments and sang. Charles worked primarily as a musician. He sang and played the violin, string bass, clarinet, Bb and Eb cornet, accordion, melodeon, alto, tenor, and bass horn and was familiar with the piano, fife, flute and drum. Beginning in 1857, Charles also worked as a band teacher for various local bands. Additionally, he worked as a machinist in the A. W. Whitney machine shop in West Woodstock from 1859 to 1870, when Mr. Whitney moved the shop to Smithville, New Jersey. However, Charles identified his occupation as “Musician (spare hand in Machine Shop)” in the 1900 U.S. census. From a young age, Charles’ father, Gaius, encouraged him to learn to play music and, despite the family’s poor finances, spent money on instruments, singing and dancing schools, and performing opportunities. By January 1849, Charles was fiddling at informal kitchen dances, and, by 1852, he had begun playing on brass instruments. In the fall of 1852, Gaius paid a fee of $20 to allow Charles to join the newly formed Woodstock Cornet Band where he initially played the Alto horn but later also performed with other brass instruments. In 1854, Charles briefly relocated to Lowell, Massachusetts, after his uncle, Charles Raymond, wrote that he could find Charles work there. While in Lowell, Charles joined the Lowell Brass Band and worked in the shop of Hezekiah B. Smith for a brief time before returning to Woodstock. From 1855-1863, Charles either formed or joined a dance band to perform in Vermont each winter. Charles also spent some time touring as a musician with other bands in this period. For example, he joined the Boston Brass Band in 1858 but paid a substitute to play for him in Cobb’s Quadrille Band while he was touring. Charles continued to work as a performing musician and band teacher throughout his life with Woodstock remaining his home base, although he still toured occasionally and made some return trips to Lowell where he played with the Lowell Brass Band. For the most part, however, the Woodstock Cornet Band remained the chief focus of Charles’ performing life. Over the course of his affiliation with the Woodstock Cornet Band, he served as a performer, music director and teacher. On September 9, 1867, Charles married Lucy J. Shaw of Northfield, Vermont. Lucy died in 1876, about a week after their 9th wedding anniversary. Charles and Lucy had two children, Charles J. Cobb and Ada Cobb. After Lucy’s death, Charles remarried to the widow, Mrs. Eunice Thomas, in 1877. Charles Morris Cobb died on March 7, 1903, in the house where he was born, leaving behind an estate that included 400 or more acres.
Charles Morris Cobb. Standing, top left, with members of Hough’s Quadrille Band. Date unknown, but probably 1865-1875,
Close up view of the inscribed plate located on the back left corner of the a handmade clarinet case.
Henry Eugene Cobb (1848-1932)
Henry was the son of Hiram (brother of Gauis Cobb) and Sarah Cobb. He lived in West Woodstock and was a machinist for some years and later worked his small farm. He was known as a gentle man and he once wrote “free this country from scourge of slavery” and “read, be wise and live.” Not much else is known about him other than he had a daughter, whom he spent his last years with. According to his descendants, Henry made and played this violin while living in West Woodstock.
Henry Cobb.
Wear marks on the neck of Henry’s violin.
Don Thomas (1854-1928)
Don Elmer Thomas was born on January 29th, 1854, to Eliphalet and Eunice (Holt) Thomas. Don played violin in one of Charles Morris Cobb’s bands. Charles Morris Cobb married Don Elmer Thomas’s widowed mother Eunice in 1877. Don would have been 23 years old when his mother married Charles Morris Cobb. Because of this association, it can be assumed that Don knew Charles’ father, Gaius Cobb and might have learned how to make violins from him.
Given the ad above, which Don E. Thomas placed in a local newspaper indicating he had taken a “course of instruction under an expert violin maker”, it seems likely that Gaius Cobb was that expert violin maker.
Violin attributed to Don Thomas. Photo courtesy of Duncan Hastings. Private collection.
Don Thomas with his violin.
Carlos C. Adams (1840-1935):
Carlos was born in West Windsor, Vermont on October 22, 1840 and moved with his parents Albert and Luciana Lewis Adams to South Woodstock when he was six years old. The family lived at the “Old Adams Place” on Long Hill near Biscuit Hill. He played the violin at parties with his cousin Ed Adams of West Windsor. Carlos made several instruments at the age of twenty, before the Civil War, and then stopped until forty-five years later when he again took up the craft of making violins. These violins were made from the home and out buildings on Long Hill in South Woodstock. His violins were not steamed and formed but hewn with his own homemade tools. Carlos spent many hours whittling on a single piece of wood to the proper thickness and used broken window glass to scrape the wood to the desired finish. At the age of eighty four he had sold over thirty violins as well as those he gave away. His violins were sold for $16 to $20 during the 1920s.
Carlos Adams violin.
It appears that Carlos decided to not put a finish on this violin which is in the collection of the Green Mountain Perkins Academy in South Woodstock.
Carlos Adams. Photo courtesy of the Green Mountain Perkins Academy where he was a student in 1861.