Marc reenacts two common aspects of a Sawyer's trade commonly performed in the 1770's (Revolutionary War period) through and beyond the 1830's (Jacksonian period). 

A sawyer is one that is employed in sawing wood.

One aspect for the sawyer trade is hewing round  logs into square beams. These beams would typically be used in the construction of log homes, log cabins and timber framed structures of the time. Hewing usually involves a combination of any of the following tools:

  • A bit (felling) axe - an axe used to fell a tree but in the context of hewing it is used to make notches in a log along a side to be hewn.  This helps control the depth of the wood that the hewing axe will remove as well as help make the job of squaring off the side of a long log more manageable.
 

Special thanks to Peterson's Custom Lumber for the wood needed to build the Pitsaw horses.
  • A Hewing (broad) axe - an axe used to shave away small sections of a log along a defined line in a effort to "square off" the given side.
    
  • A carpenters adze - an adze is an axlike tool with a curved blade at right angles to the handle, used for shaping wood.  This tool can be used to either square up a log by standing on top of the log or on wood flooring to even out

  Another aspect of the sawyer trade is that of being a man on a pitsaw crew. A pitsaw is a two handled rip saw used to rip logs into planks of wood.  These planks could then be used for a variety of uses such as floor planks, planks for furniture or planks for siding on a home.  Usually there would be four to six men in a "pit crew".  Two men would work for roughly half hour shifts ripping planks of wood. When they started to wear out they would stop and let two other men on the pit team take over.  This tag team effort would continue sun up to sun down, maximizing the daylight available.  An experienced pit crew could cut two to three ten to twelve foot planks in a half hour shift. Pit crew teams where paid based on experience.

 


Special Thanks to Dan Colie

 

 
 

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