Williamsburg Carpentry Trades

 September 20, 2022 ~ By Jarret

I’ll start by saying that Williamsburg couldn’t have been a better fit for me when it comes to a trip not intended just for relaxation, but instead a trip with a little learning and purpose in mind. When it comes to learning, I learn best by a visual format with props you can touch and feel and the ability to ask questions and interact. So, needless to say, Williamsburg fit this to a “T”.

There were numerous tradesmen and tradeswomen who gave demonstrations of their craft. The gratifying thing with each and every one of them is that their work had a tangible purpose. For example, the tailor painstakingly makes period-authentic garments for his fellow Williamsburg citizens. And they also have a connection with history, with real tradesmen and women of the past. This was something very satisfying to me, as it’s not common to see our clothes or shoes being made in front of us.

Woman sharpening a saw blade.  Note the tavern mugs being used for drinking water.

And of course, the people who work with wood are definitely some of the people I  most wanted to meet. This craft in this historical setting combines two things I love: woodworking and increasing my knowledge of how woodworking and house building have been done in times past. Colonial American architecture, in particular, is something I always find attractive and want to learn more about.

There were two shops I visited related to these crafts: the cabinet shop and the joinery shop. First, my mom and I visited the cabinet shop. As we entered the first room of the shop, we were greeted by a row of beautiful furniture that had been built without the benefit of modern power tools. Next, as we stood at the back of a crowd of people, I was impressed by my mom identifying the species of a few slabs of raw wood. This was a reminder of where I got my love of woodworking - my mom has done wood projects her whole life and gave us kids a lot of teaching and the freedom and encouragement to use tools and develop creativity and confidence in a variety of crafts from a young age.

As the crowd thinned out, we learned briefly about the cabinetmakers as well as the harpsichord makers, who operated in the same shop. A funny thing that occurred was when the cabinetmaker showed a brand new drop-leaf table he’d recently finished, noting that the interesting swivel-leg design was common in the late 18th century. My mom let him know that a similar coffee table in our rented cottage had an unfortunate height/width ratio, as well as a missing leg and two compromised legs, which caused continual hazard to our food and drink. She even jokingly offered to take an original 1700’s leg that he’d found at an antique sale and fit it to our sad coffee table.

Explaining the history of an antique table leg

Next, I visited the joinery shop on my own. I learned that joinery in the context of the late 1700’s essentially meant being a finish carpenter, which also included building your own doors and windows. One thing that really interested me was when one of the carpenters pulled down a well-worn book, which was a dictionary of architectural styles. He commented on the use of Doric columns which were prevalent in that era, such as we’d observed at the US Capitol, and how George Washington chose simpler Tuscan columns for Mount Vernon. Then he showed me some commonly used tools, many of which were typical saws and planes, but I hadn’t seen molding planes in person before.

Our time at these and most shops was fairly brief, so I’d love to go back and learn much more about the tools the carpenters were using and see more projects being worked on. In another life, I could see myself working in one of these shops for a few years, and I think I’d find great satisfaction in using my mind and hands to preserve history and beautiful architecture.