About Cooperman HistoryLives at Cowings Mill
The Mill and Workshop
The earliest Cooperman workshop (in the 1950’s) was the Mount Vernon NY basement of founder Patrick H. Cooperman, a snare drummer who began making drumsticks for himself and fifes for his father-in-law, then began making instruments for the wide community of ancient fife & drum musicians (that's the reason our corporate name is Cooperman Fife & Drum Co., a question we're often asked). Pat Cooperman first made museum store products around 1961 when the gift shops at Colonial Williamsburg, whose drum corps he made museum reproduction instruments for, asked him to make a fife that would sell to visitors. From that grew an entire line of high quality, carefully researched museum store products.
For more than 30 years Centerbrook CT was the home base for the growing line of Cooperman instruments and products. In 1987, The Cooperman Company purchased and began revitalizing the old sawmill and wood bending operation of the Maplecraft Manufacturing Company of Bellows Falls VT, where Cooperman craftspeople learned the skills of selecting trees in the local forests for their unique tone qualities and bending characteristics, as well as the craft of sawing the logs and steam-bending the lumber. Maplecraft was begun in the 1920s by the Cowing brothers, thus the name Cowings Mill. In 2006 all Cooperman operations were consolidated here at our Vermont mill, now the center of Cooperman’s proud heritage trades.
The Cooperman Company BusinessesThere is a long tradition in the United States of musical instruments companies being involved in other trades that utilize similar machinery in order to justify the expense of sophisticated equipment, and Cooperman is no exception. In addition to the musical instruments we make directly for bands and musicians worldwide, we manufacture a line of traditional toys, games, and inexpensive musical instruments for the museum gift shop trade; we supply other manufacturers in the music trade with parts for their own brand instruments; and we make a custom line of wooden boxes for the gourmet food industry. Links to the various web stores and sites that reflect these product lines are ilisted below - contact us for more information.
Cooperman Company
1007 Route 121
Bellows Falls VT 05101 USA
coopermanvt@gmail.com
802-463-9750
Office hours: 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM
Visitors by appointment only
Cooperman HistoryLives (to the trade only)