Though I am not as well versed in this area of carpentry as John is I am 
reminded by his comments of a German itinerant carpenter I once heard of 
who did some rather amazing work in the Finger Lakes region of NY state, 
where there is an abundance of Greek Revival, where he worked up past 
1950. The story was that he had come from Germany and wandered around 
until he found a patron that kept him busy on their estate. Though the 
demands of the work differ than in the 19th c there continues to be a 
global tradition of itinerancy in the trades though it is disguised, at 
least in our part of the civilized woods, and not as much noticed for 
the predominance of industrial productions. I do vaguely remember nearly 
40 years ago commissioning a friend who was a wood carver to refabricate 
a few column capitals for a Greek Revival residence along Seneca Lake 
where I was rebuilding a fireplace. So in my thinking the on-site 
fabrication of the columns is more plausible than not. Also probably 
very much unverifiable. My grandfather was a master finish carpenter who 
specialized in spiral staircases and the sole documentation of one of 
the most elaborate ones that he left behind consists of pencil notes on 
two sides of a narrow-lined piece of school writing paper that is now 
resident in a drawer 100 miles distant from the stair, looks like some 
sort of mathematical code, and is only known for what it is by about two 
persons, myself and my mother... and now ya'll.

Ken

On 1/6/2011 8:24 AM, John Leeke wrote:
> During that era classical columns were made individually by hand for 
> each building project.

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