About twenty years ago I was part owner of an antique shop in Wiscasset, a
coastal Maine village that loudly insists that it is Maine's prettiest.

My partner called me at my workshop one day and told me that I had to come
down to the shop immediately (I live in Alna, a very little village, about
7 miles inland). That was, for reason of deadlines, impossible. And why, I
asked, was it so important. He explained that there were some people who
had wandered into the shop who he wanted me to meet. Amish people.

That wasn't really entirely surprising, since, at that time one would
occasionally see a buggy load of Amish of the stricter order, scouting
around Maine, looking to relocate. Pennsylvania was just getting too
crowded, too expensive and too modern for some.

He explained that they were a family of furniture makers and lumber mill
operators, that they had a mess of tiger maple and good Penn. cherry for
sale, and he thought that we might do some business.

"You mean that they came up to Maine in a wagon filled with lumber that
they were trying to sell?"

"No. the lumber's still in Pennsylvania. But you really ought to meet them"

Unfortunately, deadlines aside,  I was expecting a customer at my workshop
and couldn't get away, but, figuring that if they had made it all the way
up to Maine they could make it another 7 miles, I suggested that he send
them along. Avid to sell their lumber, they agreed to make the trip. I
didn't really know how long it would take a buggy to drive the distance
between Wiscasset and Alna, but I figured that I had plenty of time to see
my client  before they arrived.

About ten minutes later a shiny new stretch van pulls into my driveway,
stops about even with the garden in front of the house and a gang of about
6 kids accompanied by three women get out and start flying all over the
lawn, as any kids cooped up for a long car ride might. Except that all of
them were dressed just as if they had stepped out of a postcard from sunny
Lancaster county. Girls and women in long print dresses, arms covered to
the wrist, legs to the ankle, hair in twin braids curled around the backs
of their heads, with bonnets hanging down their backs. Boys wearing striped
ticking shirts, baggy pants held up by suspenders, with heavy black shoes
on their feet.

The van pulled up the rest of the way to the shop and out came the rest of
the clan, an older man and two men in their early thirties. All three wore
bib overalls, heavy boots, and had fringe beards. Behind the wheel, where
he remained throughout the visit, sat a very young long-haired hippy
looking guy.

The men introduced themselves, a father and his two sons. The women, they
explained were their three wives and the children, all but one, the next
generation of the family.

In something like a mild state of shock, I rudely commented that I had not
expected to see them so soon, as I was expecting them to be making the trip
under horse power. They explained that they were on vacation, and that
while they were prohibited from driving vehicles powered by internal
combustion engines, except tractors, they were not prevented from riding in
them. The van, in fact, was jointly owned by several families, who used it
to make longish trips, hiring a local youth as driver when needed.

We stood outside talking about their lumber, which they promised to send me
a sample of, and then, somewhat nervously, since as a hand craftsman I
assumed that the years of hand woodworking experience standing before me
would put me to shame, I invited them into my shop.

Back then, as now, I had one fellow working for me, and at the time of the
visit we were both working on completing a large commission, a Connecticut
Valley style Highboy in cherry wood. I mentioned that to the men as we
moved toward the shop, and the father said that that would be really
interesting since  highboys were one of their products too.  Roy, my
employee, was at his bench when we came in,  finishing shaping a cabriolet
leg with a spokeshave, rasps and cabinet scrapers. I introduced him to them
and we spent a few moments watching him work. I couldn't help but notice
that the men all had an odd, surprised look on their faces, and was pretty
certain that they were disappointed with what they were seeing. One of them
asked to see what I was up to and I took them over to my bench where I was
cutting the dovetails for the drawers. I had a  drawer side, with the
dovetail pins, sticking up in my vise, and my saws and chisels lying on the
bench along side it.

"You mean you make your drawers by hand too" one of the men, incredulous,
asked. "You know, I've never seen that before. Would you show us how you do
it?"

If the appearance of the van was a surprise, that remark really threw me
for a loop.

"You mean you don't?"

"No, we use a router table and jigs."

"What about the legs. How do you make those?"

"We don't. we buy them in bulk from a turning shop down in North Carolina.
I don't know how they make them, but it certainly isn't by hand. Every one
is exactly the same."

"Well what hand work do you do?"

"None really, except some final fitting of the joints with a chisel. We do
the carving with an overarm router. In fact, I've never seen so many hand
tools in all my life!"  And this was the father speaking.

"But how? I thought that you didn't use electric motors or internal
combustion engines."

"We don't, except for tractors, as I said."

It began to dawn on me. "You've got the tractor running outside, and are
driving an overhead shaft off the PTO, right?"

"You got it. Its a system that my Daddy set up back in the twenties, though
we've made some improvements over the years. Got some pictures. Want to see
em?"

Of course I did, expecting to see something like photographs I had seen of
19th Century shops, with wide flapping exposed belts running humungous cast
iron tools that were ready to swallow limbs without even a belch. What I
saw, rather, was a shop full of new-looking Powermatic equipment, the best
on the market, with narrow shields covering the belts coming down off the
cowled overhead shaft. OSHA wan't big back then, but every safety devise
was in place, and they would, I was sure, pass  inspection easily.

"The people at Powermatic were real helpful with the engineering to rig up
the belt drives."

"And what about the lumber mill? Don't suppose that its water driven?"

Used to be, back when it was an up-and-down saw. But now its run by
stationary diesel. Circular, with an overhead saw so it can handle logs up
to 28", and cut-off saws to size the boards to length. And a big planer, of
course."

"And how do you get away with that?" By this point I was pretty comfortable
with the notion that for these Amish, at least, sectarian rules were there
to be circumvented, not to be religiously adhered to.

"Oh, that was easy. Idea my daddy came up with, back when the mill was
converted from water to make-or-break engine. He bought the engine, then
gave it to a neighbor, not Amish. He runs it for us and charges us a fee."

I really enjoyed the subtle distinction of the terms used.

For the rest of the afternoon, except when we were interrupted by a very
bewildered customer, we hung around the benches and Roy and I showed them
something about how you make furniture by hand. They even called in one of
the boys, who turned out to be the younger brother of the driver, along for
just such eventualities, to take some pictures with the 35mm camera they
bought and gave to him. They explained that he was dressed like their own
children because he hadn't brought enough clothes and had borrowed some
until they stopped long enough for him to wash all their clothes in a
Laundromat, another one of his jobs.

I told them about the Jewish custom of the "shabbus goy", a Christian who
was hired by orthodox Jews to light Sabbath candles, and perform other work
that was prohibited to them on the Sabbath. The father remarked that they
did a fair amount of business with Jewish produce brokers and he had always
admired the Jews for their realistic approach to life and business, and
their ingenuity and adaptability. I wasn't surprised.

They did send me a sample of their tiger maple and a copy of the booklet
advertising their furniture. The furniture looked just about the same as
anything being produced around High Point, No.Car., and their lumber prices
were just too high for me to go near.

I've always intended to pay them a return visit, but never have. Now, I'm
really curious to see how they have incorporated CNC into their operations.

Bruce