Clarinet, C (composite)
Maker
Asa Hopkins
Maker
Jabez M. Camp
Date1830-1837 ca.
Place MadeLitchfield, Connecticut, United States, North America
Serial No.none
SignedStamped on top joint and middle joint: J.M.CAMP / LITCHFIELD / CONNStamped on bell: A.HOPKINS / LITCHFIELD / CONN
Markingsnone
Description5 sections: barrel, top joint, middle joint, bottom joint, bell. Simple system, English style; 5 brass keys with flat, square covers, mounted in rings and lower stock bulge, with flat springs attached to keys; boxwood body; ivory ferrules; cranked F-sharp/C-sharp key; darkwood (cocus?) mouthpiece with long tenon and grooves for string ligature.
Both natives of Litchfield, Asa Hopkins (1779-1838) and Jabez McCall Camp (1811-1890), are among the earliest American woodwind instrument makers.
Hopkins was first trained as a clockmaker, a trade he practiced between 1810 and 1825. After that, he sold his clockmaking business and established a large water-powered woodwind instrument workshop on the Naugatuck River, in the area of Litchfield that came to be called “Fluteville.”
Camp apprenticed with Hopkins and became a partner of the workshop in 1832. In June 1837, apparently because of Hopkins’s deteriorating health, Camp became the general partner, and for two years, all instruments bore his stamp. The Camp firm sold the majority of its stock in 1839 to Firth & Hall of New York.
DimensionsOverall length (from tip of mouthpiece to bottom of bell): 594 mm (1.6 mm gap between mouthpiece and barrel, 1.1 mm gap between top and middle joints)
Overall length (from tip of barrel to bottom of bell): seized, previous measurement 530 mm
Barrel: 52.9 mm
Upper joint: 163 mm
Middle joint: 92 mm
Bottom joint: 111 mm
Bell: 104.5 mm
Bore at top of top joint: 13.4 mm
Bore at bottom of top joint: 13.0 mm
Bore at bottom of middle joint: 13.4 mm
Bore at bottom of bottom joint: 17.1 mm
ProvenanceAccording to the donor, this clarinet belonged to her maternal great-grandfather Samuel Williamson Barbour (1820-1908), who was engaged in the lumber business in Springfield, Indiana, and later became a farmer and landowner in Indiana, and Oxford, Ohio.
Dorothy Cook Meade (1913-1996) was a member of the known family of American paleontologists and geologists, whose important work and legacy are imprinted in museums of Nebraska – such as the University of Nebraska State Museum and the Eleanor Barbour Cook Museum of Geology – and in the history of the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, where descendants still own the Agate Springs Ranch on the Niobrara River.
Published ReferencesSilva, Ana Sofia. “When Music and Paleontology Meet at the National Music Museum.” _Nebraska History_103, no. 4 (Winter 2022): 190-201.
Silva, Ana Sofia. "When Music and Paleontology Meet at the National Music Museum." _NMM Newsletter_47, no. 1 (Winter 2023): 7.
"Camp, Jabez McCall." In _The New Langwill Index_, edited by William Waterhouse, 56. London: Tony Bingham, 1993.
Eliason, Robert E. and Albert R. Rice. "The Continuation of Phillip T. Young's Research: a New Article about Asa Hopkins, Jabez M. Camp, and Firth, Hall & Pond Woodwind Making." _Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society_ 38 (2012): 173, illus. (d).
Reeves, Deborah Check. "Historically Speaking." _The Clarinet_ 35, no. 3 (June 2008): 22.
"A Review of 1984 Acquisitions --- Continued!" _Shrine to Music Museum, Inc., Newsletter_ 12, no. 3 (April 1985): 4.
Young, Phillip T. _2500 Historical Woodwind Instruments_. New York: Pendragon Press, 1982. (p. 66)
Young, Phillip T. _4900 Historical Woodwind Instruments_. London: Tony Bingham, 1993. (p. 125)
Credit LineGift of Dorothy C. Meade, 1985
Object number03530
On View
Not on view
