Joiner's Shop

Labeled by Jefferson as "C. is a joiner's shop" in the 1796 Mutual Assurance Plat.

The foundation and chimney are all that remain of the Monticello Joiner's Shop, one of the first buildings to be constructed on Mulberry Row. A joiner was a woodworker who made doors, windows, and decorative finish work, such as cornices and mantels, balustrades, and railings.

In the forty-year course of the construction and reconstruction of the Monticello house, some of the finest architectural woodwork in Virginia was made in the Mulberry Row joiner's shop.

Thomas Jefferson employed highly skilled joiners to live and work at Monticello. Jefferson considered Irishmen James Dinsmore and John Neilson to be "house joiners of the very first order both in their knolege in Architecture, and their practical abilities."¹ Dinsmore and Neilson passed their skills on to enslaved men at Monticello, including John Hemmings, who overseer Edmund Bacon described as "a first rate workman—a very extra workman. He could make any thing that was wanted in woodwork."²

An inventory of tools that James Dinsmore made in 1809 reveals the specialized nature of the work in the Mulberry Row joiner's shop. Dinsmore listed over eighty planes for cutting a variety of moldings, each named for shapes they cut — astragal, ogee, ovolo, etc.³

Pine and poplar were the main woods used by Monticello's joiners for the architectural woodwork, which was then painted or, in the case of some of the doors, grained to look like mahogany. The parquet floor in the Parlor, the work of James Dinsmore, was made of cherry and beech. Most of the joiners were also skilled cabinetmakers, and numerous joiner's shop-made pieces of mahogany, cherry, and walnut furniture survive. John Hemmings was known to have made chairs, tables, desks, and the body of a landau carriage.

When referring to the joinery work of Monticello's free and enslaved craftsmen, Jefferson wrote that "there is nothing superior in the US."⁴ After 1809, when the house was complete and the white workmen left, African-American artisans like John Hemmings trained young enslaved apprentices in the art of joining.

- Lucia Stanton, 1995

Related Media

Monticello Joinery Shop Chimney by Ed Triplett, University of Virginia

Hired joiners and carpenters:

• Thomas Walker, cabinetmaker, 1773-78
• Humphrey Gaines, carpenter, 1774–78
• William Fossett, carpenter, 1775–79
• Joseph Neilson, joiner, 1775–79
• Benjamin Colvard, carpenter, 1778–79
• David Watson, joiner, 1781–84, 1792, 1793–97
• James Dinsmore, joiner, 1798–1809
• John Holmes, joiner, 1800–01
• James Oldham, joiner, 1801–04
• John Neilson, joiner, 1805–09

 Enslaved joiners and carpenters:

• Lewis (1758–1822), 1798–1822
• John Hemmings (1776–1833), 1798–1831
• Eston Hemings (1808-1856), 1822–1827
• Madison Hemings (1805–1877), 1819–1827