Joining

Joiners were skilled woodworkers who made furniture, doors, windows and decorative finishwork, such as cornices and mantels. Jefferson originally hired white joiners to create the intricate woodwork for his house and to train enslaved apprentices. Monticello's joiners, free and enslaved, made some of the finest woodwork in 19th-century Virginia.

The Joiner's Shop was among the earliest buildings erected on Mulberry Row to support the construction of the main house. Here James Dinsmore, an Irish master joiner, oversaw the work of the shop and trained John Hemmings, an enslaved member of the Monticello community.

Hemmings, like his fellow joiners, began his work with pine, poplar, cherry, beech, walnut, chestnut, locust, or oak planks that had been dried in the carpenter’s shop.  He used hand planes—block-like tools that contained thin, sharp blades—to shave off thin strips of wood in order to shape the timber and make it smooth. To make balusters or newel posts, he also used a foot-powered lathe to spin the piece of wood while he used chisels, rasps, and files. Hemmings further shaped the wood by using pincers, pliers, vices, and screws. Then, without using nails, he joined the finished pieces together.

Hemmings became a master joiner and oversaw the creation of the woodwork for Jefferson's retreat home, Poplar Forest. Jefferson's sons with Sally Hemings, Beverly, Eston, and Madison, all apprenticed under Hemmings.