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Category: Hands Employed Aright

Life in Blue Hill, from ‘Hands Employed Aright’

Posted on by fitz
Detail of Self Portrait.
– Jonathan Fisher Memorial.

Excerpted from “Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847),” by Joshua A. Klein.

After graduation, [Jonathan] Fisher married Dolly Battle of Dedham, Mass., and accepted a call to minister to the frontier town of Blue Hill in the District of Maine. Situated about halfway up the Maine coast, Blue Hill is the subject of many idyllic landscape paintings. The jagged and rocky shoreline, salty ocean air and lush forests have long attracted tourists looking to get away from city life.

Fisher’s letters to family members are full of warmth and piety.

As welcome a vacation spot as midcoast Maine is today, in the first half of the 19th century it was inhospitable frontier wilderness. Between the notoriously recalcitrant populace and the lack of resources, the isolated frontier was a daunting mission. Kevin Murphy described Blue Hill in the 1790s as “a clutch of rude dwellings surrounded by some rickety tidal mills.” (2) The benefits of serving in a well-established town were not lost on Fisher. Before accepting the call to rural Blue Hill, he also considered a pastorate in Ashby, Mass., “in the heart of a well settled country,” which offered closer proximity to family, better compensation, assistance from fellow ministers and more “temporal conveniences.” For a Harvard-trained minister, the allure of urban ministry was real. Despite this temptation, Fisher felt a divine call to serve in this frontier setting – the “infant part of the country” – because “it [was] difficult for them to find a sufficient number of candidates, who [were] willing even to come and preach among them, and much less to settle.” (3) As one man said, “We are so as it wore out of the wourld that we don’t hardly know wether we do rite or rong but we mean to do as well as we can.” (4)

The Province of Maine from the best authorities, Samuel Lewis, 1794, W. Barker sculp., engraved for Mathew Carey’s American edition of Guthrie’s Geography Improved.
– Courtesy, David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries, https://purl.stanford.edu/sr253bc9505.

Late 19th-century Blue Hill historian, R.G.F. Candage, recalled: “In personal appearance Father Fisher was below medium height; he dressed in ancient style, with small clothes, knee buckles and shoes, and a long waisted coat, his head bald and thrown slightly forward, with his whole demeanor and appearance clerical and grave; no one could see him and doubt his profession.” This image of the publicly austere reverend concurs with other contemporary descriptions of him, but reading his journals and personal correspondence one can’t help but be impressed with his warmth and piety. Kevin Murphy’s assessment of Fisher’s demeanor concurs with my own: “Fisher’s public persona – serious, and probably overbearing and too exacting for his parishioners – overshadowed the private Fisher, who emerges from his letters and diaries and from the words of his family as sensitive, intelligent, and inspiring.” (5) Or as Mary Ellen Chase put it: “He mingled authority with love.” (6)

As temporary structures, log cabins were quick to build and allowed frontier families to prepare the land for settlement. – Missouri History Museum, St. Louis.

Jonathan Fisher’s life was far from easy. He regularly dealt with migraine headaches, stomach pains, diarrhea and serious injuries from manual labor. Despite these trials, Fisher resigned himself under the hand of Providence. Accounts such as that of August 28th, 1818, are common: “Came on for Bluehill exercised with pain in my side, back and bowels and with diarrhoea. Called at Phin. Osgood’s, Jr. Reached home 10 P.M. Took sop pills and mullein tea. Found the family well, except Josiah, wounded by an ax. Have reason to bless God that we are all yet spared in life, that we have so many comforts indulged us.” Even in the midst of debilitating physical pain, Fisher carried on with the work at hand. On March 17, 1826, his journal reads, “High N.W. scattering clouds, cold. From 9 A.M. ‘till about 5 P.M. exercised with earache, some of the time severely. Tried first camphor on wool, then hot tobacco smoke, then had several drops of West Indian Rum dropped in. This in the first trial gave a little relief; in the second removed the severity of the pain. At intervals through the day planed out stuff for a common ruler, a pair of parallel rulers and modern dividers, finished the latter, A part of the time walked the room in great pain. It is easy to bear pain when we do not feel it, but when it is acute, then to bear it with patience is something.” He was a resilient man. Not owning a horse until late in his life, he was known to regularly travel long distances on foot, even as far as Bangor, 40 miles away.

This 1802 overmantel from a Paris, Maine, house illustrates well the stages of settlement: Clearing forest, building a house frame and the establishing of a village center. “View from Paris Hill” in the Lazarus Hathaway House. – “The Clearing of Paris Hill.” Oil on pine board, 30″ x 48″, artist unknown. Overmantel from the Lazarus Hathaway house, Paris Hill, 1802. Courtesy of the Hamlin Memorial Library and Museum. Photograph by Brandan Roberts.

Fisher’s most active furniture-making years were between 1796 (when he settled in Blue Hill) and 1820 (when he paid off all his home- and farm-building debt). The years between the Revolutionary War and 1820 (when Maine achieved statehood) were formative years for the new nation. This was especially true for the “easternmost countries” of Massachusetts, which were then called the District of Maine. Maine’s struggle for independence during these years can be seen as a “microcosm of the larger quest for national identity.” (7) Politically, demographically and socially, the District of Maine had been an “outpost” of Massachusetts since the late 17th century.

Maine derived most of its cultural influence from Boston in the same way that Bostonians looked to London for the latest fashions. Despite this deep-rooted “Boston prestige” during Fisher’s life, Maine was developing an identity apart from Massachusetts. It is not surprising, then, that Maine’s art during the Federal era often reflects this emerging sense of identity, blending vernacular/folk traditions with the sophistication of academic training.

(2) Murphy, Kevin D., Jonathan Fisher of Blue Hill, Maine: Commerce, Culture, and Community on the Eastern Frontier, University of Massachusetts Press, 2010, p 3.
(3) Letter to Ashby from Fisher, October 26, 1795.
(4) Harding, Samuel B., The Contest over the Ratification of the Federal Constitution in the State of Massachusetts, New York: Longmans-Green, 1896, p 8, quoted in Banks, Ronald F., Maine Becomes a State: The Movement to Separate Maine from Massachusetts, 1785-1820, New Hampshire Publishing Co.; Wesleyan/Maine Historical Society, 1973, 4, p 9.
(5) Murphy, Kevin D., Jonathan Fisher of Blue Hill, Maine: Commerce, Culture, and Community on the Eastern Frontier, University of Massachusetts Press, 2010, p 13.
(6) Chase, Mary Ellen Jonathan Fisher, Maine Parson 1768-1847, The MacMillan Co., 1948, p 279.
(7) Clarke, Charles E.; Leamon, James S. and Bowden, Karen, Maine in the Early Republic, Maine Historical Society and Maine Humanities Council, 1988, p 12.

Jonathan Fisher Child’s Desk

Posted on by fitz

Included in his investigation of the life, tools and a detailed look at the furniture of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847), a rural Maine minister and craftsman, author Joshua A. Klein also presents an overview of 38 pieces built by this Harvard-educated renaissance man. Below is number 10, a charming child’s desk, from “Hands Employed Aright.”

Dimensions: D: 19-1⁄2″ W: 25-3⁄4″ H: 32-1⁄2″; stock thickness 3⁄4″-7⁄8″

Wood(s): maple or birch; legs are an unknown hardwood (possibly beech)


Inscriptions/stamps: sticker on cubby lid “Desk made by Rev. Jonathan Fisher Blue Hill, ME. (1791-1847) Lonnie E. Davis got it in 1948-9 fr. James Fisher bequest to MA Dodge 1955”

From the collection of: Jonathan Fisher Memorial

Construction: The desk is made of butted and nailed construction. The legs protrude up through bottom as corner reinforcement and were nailed from the outside. Everything is nailed together through the adjacent face. The nail holes appear to have been puttied. The top has a hinged scalloped decoration. The apron also has scalloped decorative pieces nailed to the undersides of the front and sides. The desk lid’s hinges are face mounted. The writing surface end grain is covered by a 1⁄4″-thick decorative carved strip. There are turned balls on the front corners. The top-hung drawer is butted and nailed with cut nails. The drawer runners are nailed from the bottom up into the desk with cut nails. The inside cubby is divided into four compartments. The small hinged cubby door is on wire cotterpin hinges. The writing surface has a lock attached with nails. The bottom is nailed in place from all sides. There is yellow paint residue in cracks and dark yellow putty in the nail holes. On and around the hinges are remnants of red paint. Red pigment is visible on the drawer underside. The desk underside has pink chalky residue.


Tool Marks: There is considerable tear-out on the inside of one of the legs. There are some sash sawmill marks on the desk bottom. The bottom was planed with a fore plane. Most surfaces are smooth (perhaps due to later sanding during refinishing). The apron scallops have chisel facets and there is a saw kerf visible between scallops. There are divider center points on the scalloped details on the aprons. There are fore plane marks on the drawer face. The drawer bottom is rough and irregular. There are chisel facets on the top scalloped detail.

Condition: stable; the legs are extremely warped

Wind-powered Lathe in Rural Maine

Posted on by fitz
A detail of the 1888 photograph seen earlier shows a chimney as well as windows in the chamber (upper floor) of Fisher’s shop. Approximately 60 years earlier, there was a small windmill on this roof to power his sawmill, lathe and grindstone. – Jonathan Fisher Memorial.

Who better to write a book about Jonathan Fisher, a late 18th century/early 19th century Maine woodworker and preacher, than Joshua Klein? Like Fisher, Joshua and his family are homesteaders in rural Maine, doing their best to live completely off the land. And Joshua is using in his own shop many of the same types of tools that Fisher had in his collection (not a surprise to those who know Joshua as the founder and editor in chief of Mortise & Tenon Magazine, a periodical that celebrates the preservation, research and recreation of historic furniture). As the crow flies, the Kleins live about 7 miles from Fisher’s Blue Hill farm.

Excerpted from “Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847),” by Joshua A. Klein.

In November 1810, Fisher began building a model of a “wood house.” Never one for technological stagnation, Fisher envisioned a building next to his house that was dedicated to producing lumber on a wind-powered sawmill that would also power his lathe. As a lumbering town, Blue Hill had numerous water-powered sawmills in Fisher’s days, but on his property at the top of the hill, Fisher had no access to a river or stream. What he did have, especially after years of clearing his property, was wind.

Although the memories of New England’s windmills are nearly faded, their abundance, especially along the coastline, is well documented. (2) As early as the 17th century, windmills (primarily for grinding grain) were being built in areas of New England without direct water access so they were not an unusual sight by the early 1800s.

As commonly known as they were, however, the construction of such a mechanism was beyond the skill of most craftsmen. One author has noted that the millwright’s job required a precision and care equal to the shipwright’s. The vision of a rural farmer building a windmill to saw his own lumber is quixotic. It seemed a project doomed to fail.

Although water mills were much more common in Maine, New England, as a whole had many windmills, especially along the coast. – Drake, Samuel Adams, Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast, Harper & Brothers, 1876, p 344.

Reading through the journals during the two-and-a-half-years of construction of the mill is agonizing, especially as the recorded tally of his investment that included his own labor rises at $1 per day (the same rate as Joseph Murphy, a cabinetmaker of South Berwick (3) ) in the midst of numerous frustrated attempts at sawing.

We know the mill was generating power as early as April 1812, because Fisher recorded having his grindstone running “by wind.” After investing substantially and working on it for more than two years, Fisher recorded on April 19, 1813: “Worked upon saw gear and made an attempt to saw wood. Broke the [?]. Greatly disappointed in my hopes. Endeavored to resign to the will of God but found it a hard trial. I doubt not, however, but God intends good by this cross. Expense of wood house, etc. = $215.50.” The next day all that is recorded is: “Made a new experiment to carry my saw for sawing wood by wind – discouraged in it. Laid it aside = $216.50.”

Despite his discouragement, Fisher carried on and a few days later wrote, “first commenced sawing wood, with some, though small, good effect.” From here, only periodic sawing is recorded. The anticlimactic success of the sawmill is startling after so much labor and expense.

The roof of this Estonian spinning wheel shop was equipped with a small windmill for powering woodworking machinery. Fisher’s was probably similar. – Courtesy of Lost Art Press.

The wind power was also harnessed to drive the lathe. June of that year, Fisher documented: “Worked upon turning gear and set my lath a-going by wind.” Powering lathes with water power was common in production shops but wind-powered lathes were much less common. It’s hard to envision the practicality of such a setup. The irregularity of the wind must have been a challenge to deal with for the turning he was doing. The idea is not unprecedented, however. Windmill historian, Roy Gregory, has documented the use of an 8.5′-tall tower mill in a Lancashire, England, shop that powered a lathe and circular saw. The mill is described as having four 8′ long common sails with gears for regulating speed (4). Ants Viires, a historian of Estonian woodcraft, has photographed a small tower mill attached to the roof of a mid-20th-century spinning wheel workshop. It is likely that Fisher’s was similar in size.

The design of the wood house’s lathe is unknown. In Fisher’s room-by-room probate inventory taken in 1847, it listed a lathe and its chisels in the barn of which his son, Willard, was half-owner. Because two of the existing poppets do not fit the surviving lathe, it is assumed that Fisher had another lathe in the shop that was discarded when that building was taken down. Because no lathe (or any workbenches, for that matter) are listed in the probate inventory, it may be that these shop fixtures were built-ins. Often, probate inventories exclude these items because they were considered part of the shop building.

Although we know Fisher built at least two lathes, this is the only one that has survived.

It is apparent that Fisher achieved his primary goal with this windmill project because he was able to generate lumber to some degree. But it must not have revolutionized his production enough because in June 1821, he disassembled the tower of his mill, never to speak of the mill in action again. Neither the 1824 Morning View painting nor the 1888 photograph of the wood house show any evidence to testify to the existence of the mill.

The up-and-down “sash” saw marks from the mill can still be seen on the inside and backside of much of Fisher’s casework.

That Fisher referred to a least a portion of his wood house as his “shop” suggests that he eventually moved his tools out of the barn and into this dedicated space. The transition between workspaces must have been gradual because the installations of a new workbench and lathe are carried out over time amidst other woodworking projects. It is also conceivable that there always remained a small shop space in the barn for convenience sake.

In June 1823, Fisher was busy setting up his “shop chamber.” He moved his grindstone to a new location, built a “cupboard” for tool storage, constructed a portable workbench and installed a new stove. The reconfiguring of this workspace was likely due to his feeling “the infirmities of old age creeping stealthily upon him.” Perhaps this rearrangement facilitated his work.

This detail from Fisher’s A Morning View of Blue Hill Village shows the arrangement of the Fisher homestead from the side. Moving from left to right, we see the original barn, the hog house and some other outbuildings, the original red house attached to the yellow 1814 addition and finally the black “wood house.” – Jonathan Fisher, A Morning View of Blue Hill Village, 1824, oil on canvas, 25-5/8″ x 52-1/4″, Collection of the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine; Museum Purchase, 1965.1465.134.

2. Lombardo, Daniel, Windmills of New England: Their Genius, Madness, History & Future, On Cape Publications, 2003.
3. Burch, Abby, By His Account Rendered: The Business of Cabinetmaking in York County, Maine, 1815-1840, a modified master’s thesis, 2008.
4. Gregory, Roy, The Industrial Windmill in Britain, Phillimore & Co., 2005.

A Review of ‘Hands Employed Aright’

Posted on by Kara Uhl

Ray Deftereos, a self-described “hand tool evangelist from South Africa,” began learning about and working with hand tools only two years ago. This, in part, makes him an ideal person to host “Hand Tool Book Review,” a “podcast for woodworms.”

When starting out, Ray says he found it difficult to find good books about working with hand tools. So he read about 100 of them, and is reviewing them regularly. His reviews (so far he’s completed 18) are a joy to listen to –– carefully and professionally crafted, they’re thoughtful and concise, and as an avid learner himself, Ray understands what elements a book must have to further his skill. His pleasing voice is an added bonus.

Ray’s 17th book review was of Joshua Klein’s “Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847).” Ray calls it “a reference book that will continue to provide benefit for years to come.”

Regarding the book’s physical qualities, Ray says, “I wish a podcast could let you feel the texture of a book. But I guess we’ll have to settle for words.” And later: “The end product is a rich book that has to be physically seen to be truly appreciated. There’s a wonderful texture, layout and composition to the book that makes it suitable as a prized coffee table book. To get your non-hand-tool friends on the right path of course, just leave them waiting for a few minutes with the book front and center, and let the book do the talking.”

But Ray is quick to note that “Hands Employed Aright” is much more than a beautiful coffee table book. Using the phrase “investigative archaeology” more than once, Ray points out the usefulness of the book to both the beginner and experienced craftsperson. While the beginning of the book is a fascinating look at Jonathan Fisher’s life, Ray says the “back section is perfect for mulling over when starting a new project” and that inspiration can be found for a “range of projects” with folk who have a “range of experience.”

Ray also enjoyed Joshua’s careful cataloguing of Jonathan Fisher’s tools. For those still building their tool kits, it can be difficult to decide what is necessary. “I suggest that in time this book will become one of the classics alongside Benjamin Seaton’s tool chest in terms of being an incredible insight into what a typical tool kit might have contained,” Ray says.

Beyond tool and project inspiration, Ray says Jonathan Fisher’s daily journal writing “leaves an incredible record that is probably the most complete of any pre-industrial woodworking that will ever be uncovered. That said, it’s probably going to be a source of new revelations for a long time to come as the historical record is translated and compiled. And yet … perhaps the honesty of the record is what makes this book a moving read.”

Jonathan Fisher is deeply humble and human, something Joshua clearly portrays through the book. These attributes are also present in Jonathan Fisher’s woodworking. “Paging through the pieces I felt a part of sweet connection with the past,” Ray says.

Joshua “interrogates the details so thoroughly,” Ray adds. “I think that often hand tool use is romanticized as being slow or old-fashioned. The author does a lot to dispel these perceptions by showing how building furniture in this manner can be very efficient, if done with a pre-industrial mindset.”

Ray adds that this is one of the first books he’s read that celebrated the idea that tear-out on the inside of a piece is acceptable. “Like the concept of reference faces, this is a concept that becomes mundane the more you practice it,” Ray says. “But it seemed radical, the first time I encountered it. … In your hand-tool journey, I suggest that this book will help you learn from those who came before us, people who had no access to band saws or electric planers or shop assistants as they’re romantically called today. And from their experience, there is a wealth of knowledge to be gained.” 

In the beginning of this particular episode, Ray says future podcasts will discuss books on workbenches, tools, wood and finishing.

You can listen to this podcast and Ray’s others, here. You can purchase “Hands Employed Aright,” and download a free preview, here.

Thank you, Ray, for taking the time to read and review Joshua’s book –– and for sharing your hand-tool journey with so many.

— Kara Gebhart Uhl

The Card Table

Posted on by meghanlostartpress

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The grain-painted card table is a wonderful example of vernacular construction and decoration.


This is an excerpt from “Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847)” by Joshua A. Klein. 

The grain-painted card table was a surprising new acquisition donated by a descendant of a Blue Hill family. The donor’s family understands that Fisher made the table for her ancestors, Lucy Stetson and William Wardwell, as a wedding gift in the 1830s. While Fisher’s production (or at least the journal’s record of it) had dramatically slowed by that point, it is, of course, possible that he made this piece.

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The graining was not complex on this table. There was only one application of red-brown pigment on top of a yellow base color.

The construction and graining is consistent with Fisher’s work, but because there are no other card tables attributed to him, no comparisons can be made. Based on the quantitative analysis of Federal period card tables by Benjamin Hewitt, this table could be safely given a northern New England attribution. The construction of the hinged “fly” rail, the square top with ovolo corners, and the horizontal laminations of ovolo corners suggest this may well have been made in Maine. Because Hewitt’s research does not include any documented Maine card tables, this determination is based on the proximity (both geographically and culturally) to Massachusetts.

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The underside of the table shows the construction: half-blind dovetails in the back, and mortise-and-tenons in the front, which are connected by the quarter-circle ovolo corners.

The construction of the ovolo corners were approached in many different ways, but Fisher might have learned the horizontal lamination method by examining a card table that is now in the museum’s collection during one of his many visits to parishioners’ houses.

The grain painting is much less realistic and more stylized than the wardrobe’s panels, but it is similar to the majority of his graining, such as is seen on his boxes. The paint, although originally bold in color, definitely has a New England plainness about it. One scholar has described Maine’s grain painting as “less flamboyant than that of Pennsylvania and New York State productions [and] usually has a reserved, northern air.”

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The simplicity of the card table’s graining is comparable to other Fisher work, such as this box.

Although Fisher never mentioned card tables in his journals, he does write about card playing several times. As a conservative Congregationalist, Fisher took gambling to be a serious sin. The Puritan warnings about squandering your resources and the danger of covetousness made a deep impact on his mind. Fisher recalled one occasion as a child when neighbor boys brought a pack of playing cards over for the evening, “the use of which was then forbidden by law. They played a little, and I attempted to play with them.” Although they tried to hide the cards in the morning, his uncle found them out. “He took me aside, questioned me seriously upon the subject, discoursed to me in a mild manner concerning the pernicious effects of gaming, and cautioned me to avoid it. When he had done, it was not my formal promise, but my secret determination never to take cards in hand to play with them again; and through preventing goodness to this day, I have never done it, and hope I never shall.” Fisher then credited “the interposition of Providence” for having “prevented [his] temporal and spiritual ruin.” This event had such a deep impact on him that he seized the opportunity to do the same for a group of children later in his life. It was when he and his family failed to reach their departing ship that the opportunity arose. Fisher recorded, “…[Our] wheelbarrow… on the way broke down and so delayed us that the vessel had hauled off before we could get our chests on board. My sons took a boat and conveyed them on board. By means of these embarrassments I was led to enter in the evening the cabin of a vessel at the wharf, where I found a circle of youths playing cards and gave them a calm, serious lecture upon the subject. The opportunity for this more than compensates for the embarrassment. Wonderful are the ways of Providence!”

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The ovolo corners were simply screwed to the front and side aprons. Also note the horizontal three-piece laminations that make up the corners.

Regardless of Fisher’s views on card playing, this furniture form was likely used for more than just games. Gerald Ward has noted how these tables were portable, versatile and inexpensive, and also functioned as “important elements of decoration … in the Federal domestic interior.”

— Meghan B.