Clark Coe was born in Madison, CT in 1847 and became a farmer and woodworker while residing in Killingworth, CT. To amuse his grandchildren he constructed a tableau featuring life-sized figures whose movements were powered by a nearby stream using a dam and sluice way. The “Killingworth Images” consisted of approximately 12 life size figures, with multiple smaller ones on a miniature Ferris wheel. The movement of the water caused the figures to move constantly. He fashioned each figure from scraps of baskets, barrels, and planks, or from tree limbs and trunks. He then added paint, makeshift hair, and old clothes. Located on Green Hill Road across from the Cow Hill Road intersection, the images attracted a regional audience until around 1926; they fell into disrepair approximately seven years after Coe died in 1919. Today Clark Coe is widely recognized as an important American folk artist, with his “Man On a Hog” located in the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. “The Bandmaster”, pictured here, was among the water-driven figures and is owned by the Killingworth Historical Society. He can be found on display in the main room of the Killingworth Library.
