The Artisan of Ipswich: Craftsmanship and Community in Colonial New England (Director's Circle Book)

This book was an excellent journey through the life of a woodworker living in early Ipswich. I learned so many interesting things from it as the author revealed the layers of community structure and the ways that timber and property were managed by early New England settlers. They brought old ways from their homeland to the new world that eventually evolved into rules that better suited the new worlds huge bounty. It was this that was part of the revolt against taxes and laws from England that started the revolution. It's fascinating how the author was able to reconstruct the era and the details based on one surviving chest and the Ipswich town records. It truly reveals the colonial era in a whole new light that is very personal and intimate. Ipswich is a wonderful town today and this helps bring it's early years back to life.

I've been looking for a book that would give me some insight not just into the ways of work but also into the life of work of a colonial-era woodworker/craftsman. This book does just that. You feel you are peering over the shoulder of this artisan as he lives his life in the society, the forest, and the workshops of early New England. Astonishing detail: and as accurate as one can expect due to the long and extensive research and personal experience of the practicing hand tool woodworker/author.

The work is comprehensive and engaging. I could not put it down. The combination of hands on insight along with textual/traditional historical studies, make it one of those few sources that one can bank on.

An excellent view into the New England culture of that time. The authors depiction of how the tree was so integral to the lives of everyone has given me a new appreciation and respect for the tree as a resource.

Tarule, himself a furniture-maker in Vermont making reproductions of 17th-century furniture, tells Thomas Dennis's story almost as if Dennis were a character in a novel. Dennis was one of the first furniture-makers in America to gain notoriety. Coming to America and settling in the Massachusetts village of Ipswich in the mid 1600s, Dennis used many of the techniques and styles found in British furniture-making of this period. Yet having to select appropriate trees from American forests, usually in consideration of village laws relating to certain kinds of trees, work with other American craftsmen, make furniture to order from nearby residents, and give it suitable embellishments for attractiveness, Dennis is seen as an originator of American woodworking and furniture-making. But in this work, Tarule is not interested in a study of furniture-making, or a history of it. The author's concern is the work and expertise Dennis put into making one oak chest. From the author's following this in detail, one learns a great deal about 17th-century furniture-making and also the regional Colonial society. For Dennis is viewed in the narrative as both a extraordinary and respected craftsman and a member of the community which supported and shaped his trade. Tarule does not simply say what kind of wood the particular chest was made of, but takes the reader right with Dennis as he goes to the nearby woods looking for a tree with suitable oak tree, keeping in mind the village's laws. "As soon as Thomas Dennis entered the Ipswich woods, he was in the New World. The forest was primordial...The sort of trees Dennis looked for are apparent in his furniture. The wood is close grained...." And so on with a discussion of different types of oak trees whose characteristics Ipswich artists knew from "forest type, slope degree and direction, dampness of the ground, soil conditions, and even genetic variation on local trees." Tarule even engages in a comparison of British forests and American forests of the period, and changes in American forests over time. Tarule weaves a fascinating narrative under the general heading of Americana of interest to diverse readers such as antique dealers, woodworkers, and American Colonial historians.

A gift