On Tuesday, July 12th we mad our way down to Wilmington, Delaware to visit the Winterthur Museum, where we were lucky enough to have an appointment for a tour with Charles Hummel, Curator Emeritus. Mr. Hummel has been at Winterthur since the early 1950's. He has an incredible wealth of knowledge about American Decorative Arts and is probably the best resource for institutional knowledge at the museum. He was hired by Henry Francis DuPont himself, the founder and creator of Winterthur as it exists today.
We visited the installation of two buildings that were part of a family business in East Hampton, New York from the early 18th to the mid 19th centuries. Generations of Dominy's worked with wood during that time making furniture, clocks, mill parts, doing repairs as well as many other things. The larger building behind Mr. Hummel contains two lathes and a plethora of beautiful woodworking tools. We even got to go inside the shop!
If you enlarge this photo you'll be able to see some fancy inlay, indicating that this tool was repurposed from an old sword blade. Waste not, want not. Recycling is nothing new folks, it's the disposable stuff we use today that is a new and dangerous concept.
Below the tool is a table top form set up on the large lathe to show visitors how such a thing would can be turned and shaped.
We were fascinated by all the familiar looking tools as well as the things we needed Charlie's help to identify.
A beautiful old plane is lovingly inscribed with the name of its owner and probable maker, Nathaniel Dominy 1755.
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