An article I wrote that appears in the January-February issue of American Spirit Magazine. (Used with permission.) An HTML version of the article can be found here.

1. my Sit-Down WitH
Colonial ameriCan
Craftsmen
By rex Hammock

2. Three decades ago, i married into a family whose
members love furniture made during the early days of
america. By merely tagging along on tours of historic house
museums and trips to antiques dealers, estate sales and the
occasional flea market, i grew to understand the subtleties
of design and craftsmanship that provide clues to the style,
period and origin of a chair, table or chest. through the
years, i grew more and more curious about the craftsmen
who transformed the wood from the trees they found in the
new World into utilitarian objects—boxes and stands on
S
which we sit, store items, work or eat—as well as uniquely
beautiful art that has lasted centuries.
everywhere in the late 18th and early standing around a pile of firewood. At
19th centuries, from chapels and school- least, that’s what it looked like to me.
houses to taverns and barns. In hindsight, it seems odd that I was
My curiosity about the early chair surprised we’d begin the chair-making
makers grew to the point that I decided process with logs from a recently felled
to truly understand what these crafts- white oak tree. But before that weekend,
men were like, I’d need to make a chair all of my previous Saturday morning
myself. I decided to concentrate on projects had started with visits to Lowe’s
a loopback (or, as some would call it, or Home Depot.
hoopback) side chair. I knew that deci- I quickly learned that a key to mak-
sion would prove challenging because, ing a long-lasting loopback Windsor is
previous to that, the only experience I using hand-rived, or split, wood from
had in woodworking was watching epi- trees that have grown on flat land. Such
sodes of “The New Yankee Workshop” trees produce beautiful, long, straight
on PBS. grain—the secret sauce that provides
Fortunately, there is a small but amazing strength to the spindles (or
passionate network of Windsor chair- “sticks” as the early chair makers called
making enthusiasts around the coun- them) and “loop” of a Windsor’s chair
Specifically, I grew curious about the try—and many have the patience and back. Riving the wood rather than saw-
men who made and sold Windsor-style skills necessary to teach people like me ing it ensures long, uninterrupted grain
chairs. Why the Windsor? Perhaps it’s how to make a beautiful chair of our lines. When steamed, bent and formed
the variety and ubiquity of the style. own. (See sidebar on page 29 to find into the shapes of the chair back pieces—
In portraits of founding families, for out where you can receive instruction then cured and dried for an appropriate
example, you can often see a distinctive on Windsor chair making.) time—these delicate-appearing slivers
Windsor feature—perhaps the leg of a My seven-day—and 60-plus hour— of wood possess the strength to last cen-
chair—peeking out from behind fancy adventure took place at the John C. turies, if cared for properly.
attire. The Windsor style was not lim- Campbell Folk School in southwest
Who’s Making Windsors?
ited to highbrow furniture you’d find North Carolina. (See sidebar on page
The desire to make a Windsor chair
in the formal rooms of the well-to-do. 27.) Early one Saturday morning in July,
knows no demographic boundaries.
Chairs in this style could be found nearly I found myself with 12 other students
American Spirit • January/February 2009 25

3. (3)
(1) (2)
(6)
(4) (5)
(7)
Rex explains some of the
steps in his 60-hour process of
crafting a Windsor chair:
(1) and (2) Starting with pieces of a
recently felled white oak, he rives, or
splits, the wood stock, or billet.
(3) He uses a lathe to shape a chair
leg. (4) and (5) A steam box is set to
the correct temperature and wood is
placed inside in preparation for
shaping the loop that frames the
back of the chair. (6) A finished chair
leg. (7) and (8) Starting with a
pattern, he carves the chair seat and
assembles the lower part of the chair.
(9) He uses a spokeshave to shape a
spindle for the back of the chair.
Continued on page 28.
(8)
(9)
Daughters of the American Revolution
26

4. Creating your own
Our 13-person group included—among
others—a medical doctor, a State
american Craft
Department employee, a private investi-
gator, educators, small-business owners,
L
a corporate executive, a “period inter-
preter” at a historic house museum and a ong a tradition in Europe—especially Denmark—“folk schools” began as a
young woman who had graduated from way to preserve traditional means of artistic, agricultural, musical and culi-
college a few weeks earlier. nary arts. Today, the schools not only serve individuals in the immediate
We came to the class with different region, but they also attract visitors throughout the nation who participate
skill levels, but each left with a beautiful in short- and long-term programs.
Windsor chair. (The John C. Campbell More than 830 different weeklong and weekend classes are offered year-round at
Folk School may be called a school, but the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, N.C. The school is named after the
since its founding in 1925, the instruc- educator Campbell, who surveyed the people of the Southern Appalachians around
tion has never been about competition the turn of the 20th century. Together with his wife, Olive, he worked to preserve
or grades.) We were given the oppor- the history of the mountain people and share the intricate crafts of the region. With
tunity to make the chair with modern a heavy emphasis on traditional regional crafts, music, dance and food, the school,
power tools (the school has state-of- founded in 1925, appeals to hobbyists, professional artists and craftspeople. The
the-art equipment) or with nonpow- school makes it easy for anyone to immerse themselves in learning new skills and
ered tools traditional to the early 19th sharing old ones in the context of the rural, foothills setting.
century. A few of the group went The school’s Web site (www.folkschool.org) offers a complete listing of upcom-
completely unplugged, except for the ing classes and programs, including several related to woodworking.
use of modern lathes. Early American
chair makers used lathes powered by
foot pedals, or, once the Industrial
children through the course of decades,
Revolution began making its way into
even centuries.
19th-century America, by waterwheel.
While the chair’s style originated
Even those of us who used tools
in England, where artisans developed
such as power-drill presses to ensure
it into formal and ornate furniture, it
correctly angled holes spent at least 30
became a utilitarian workhorse when
to 40 hours of the week doing tradi-
it arrived around 1720 in Colonial
tional hand shaving, shaping, carving
America. Two humorous scenes in the
and sanding on each individual piece
Mel Gibson movie “The Patriot” make
that would be used in the assembly of
reference to the disparity in the quality
our chairs.
of the Colonial Windsor and its fancy
The Chair-making Process British cousin.
One of the reasons the Windsor Before the Industrial Revolution,
chair proved popular—and ubiqui- individual craftsmen worked alone
tous—among 18th- and 19th-century making the chairs. If especially suc-
Americans was its sturdiness relative to cessful, a craftsman may have been
the limited amount of materials neces- assisted by an apprentice or journey-
sary for its construction. No screws or men chair maker. In those early days,
nails were needed, and the chairs could the craftsman prepared each piece of
be made from a wide variety of lumber the chair—the shaving and shaping of
from trees growing throughout the the spindles, the carving of the seat (or
Eastern Seaboard from New England bottom) and the turning of the legs
to South Carolina. and stretchers.
What the chairs didn’t need in In the early 1800s, Windsor chair
materials, however, they required in makers began to, in a modern way of
the skills of the maker. It is no small describing it, outsource some of the
challenge to overcome the laws of preparation of the stock pieces. Young
physics necessary to make a delicate assistants would prepare batches of
chair able to withstand the force sticks, for example. Soon, however,
applied to it daily by men, women and each step in the chair-making process
American Spirit • January/February 2009 27

5. began to be carried out by specialists later. After several hours of shaving, chair becomes more than the sum of
with titles like “bodger”—an individ- your hands and shoulders begin to ache, its pieces—it becomes a time machine.
ual who worked primarily in the forest but some time later, the pain goes away. As I whittled, shaved, carved and
cutting down trees and splitting logs The repetitive movement of shaving sanded, I had the same sensation you
into the wood stock, or billets, used to down wood is hypnotic, but it requires have when climbing to the crest of a
craft individual parts of the chair. enough concentration to prevent you mountain and viewing a majestic vista.
from drifting off into a daydream. In I got it. I could understand the labor,
Connecting With Early the same way Eastern religions suggest the hard work and brute effort that the
Craftsmen that stress can be controlled by being Colonial-era craftsman exerted. But
Using the same tools as the Colonial “in the moment,” much of woodwork- I could also feel the gentle way in
craftsmen—two-handled drawknives ing’s repetitive tasks can be simultane- which each artisan applied his unique
and spokeshaves—our class sat at tradi- ously physically taxing and mentally touch to a hundred different places on
tional shaving-horse workbenches carv- relaxing. each chair.
ing, shaping and sanding the pieces of It is during these moments that you With an inch-deep layer of white
wood that we would fit together days are transported to an earlier time. The oak shavings at my feet and sweat
you are transported to an
earlier time. the chair
becomes more than the
sum of its pieces—it becomes
a time machine. (2)
– Rex Hammock
(3)
(1) Rex shapes the loop for the
(1)
back of the chair on a frame
on which the wood will dry.
(2) and (3) The chair spindles
and dried loop frame are ready
for assembly. (4) The finished
spindles are placed in the
chair seat. (4)
Daughters of the American Revolution
28

6. How to
make your own
Windsor Chair
While attending a Weeklong folk school course is one way to learn how to
make period furniture or other woodcrafts, you can also find a place near your
home that offers courses in beginning Windsor chair making. Craftsmen, schools
and woodworking retail stores provide a wide array of instructional options.
For a beginner, making a Windsor chair can take up to 50 or more hours,
depending on the materials used and the techniques followed. Some courses take
place during the evenings; others on weekends. There are even options for one-on-
one instructional and mentoring programs.
A good place to start looking is the online directory found at www.google.com/
Top/Arts/Crafts/WoodcraftWoodworking/Schools_and_Instruction.
Independent and chain woodworking retail stores also offer instructions.
Woodcraft (woodcraft.com), one of the largest such chains, offers Windsor chair
courses in nearly every one of its locations coast-to-coast.
These stores have learned it’s a good marketing approach to follow an old adage
that goes something like this: Give a man a chair, and he’ll have a place to sit.
Teach a man to make a chair, and he’ll be buying power tools for the rest of his life.
pouring into my eyes, it was finally
easy to comprehend the craftsman’s
pleasure at discovering this most prac-
tical piece of furniture is a work of art
that will carry on his legacy. I felt that
way about my chair, too.
Among the hundreds of funny sto-
ries that our close-knit group of chair
makers shared was one about a student
in a similar class years ago. Tommy Warren Chair Works
Boyd, our instructor, recalled that on
A small company devoted
the second day of the class, the student
to the hand crafting of fine
said, “I could sell this chair for $700.”
quality Windsor chairs and
On the third day, he said, “I could sell
other classic 18th-century
it for $1,000.” The next day, the man
furniture.
said, “No way am I ever selling this
chair.” And on the last day: “No one is Please call us for a copy of
ever going to sit in this chair.” our catalog and the location
Making my own Windsor chair was of your nearest dealer.
like that. I can put a price tag on what
the chair may be worth in the mar-
ketplace. But in its value for making
me appreciate the craftsmen who first
made it in Colonial America, my chair 30 Cutler Street
is priceless. Warren, RI 02885
(401 ) 247-0426
When he’s not at his new table saw, Rex warrenchairworks.com
Hammock is a publisher and editor in Nashville.
American Spirit • January/February 2009 29