If you were an unemployed colonial who wished to learn a trade that guaranteed work, enough to give your family a decent livelihood, than learning the trade of cooper was the way to go. A cooper is one who fashions wooden vessels of shaped boards, called staves, held together by wooden or metal hoops with flattened ends or heads. From the time of Jamestown, and for the next two hundred and fifty years or more, there were more coopers in the south than any other artisan profession;116,000 barrels passed through the port of Charleston, S. Carolina in 1754. Virginia coopers constructed a yearly average of over 300,000 barrels per year. So too were coopers well employed in the north; the Mayflower included a cooper, John Alden, who would become the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s governor.
Barrel making or cooper is a skilled trade that dates back over 4,000 years. Herodotus (b. 485 BC) described palm wooden casks in shipping Armenian wine to Babylon. Around 350 BC, Celts were using watertight barrels that bulged at the middle to withstand stress and could be rolled as well as stacked. The word cooper comes from the Latin ‘cuparius’, when Roman artisans made cupals or wooden containers for the vineyards of Cisalpine Gaul. A organization of coopers was first mentioned as an established fellowship in the London Mayor’s Court records in 1298. One of the oldest Livery companies in London, The Worshipful Company of Coopers, was present in 1422 and received its first Royal Charter in 1501. The use of casks went far beyond wineries. Everything was stored in these wooden containers; flour, grains, salted meats and fish, water, nails, beer, spirits, whale oil – the list was endless. By the time ships plied the waters to a new land in America, the cooper’s skills had become a long established need in every community and mercantile business worldwide.
Beyond the required needs of the original settlers to store their personal food supplies in wooden containers and barrels, early entrepreneurs and merchants required containers to export the vast natural resources of a virgin land. Rich harvests of corn, grains, tobacco, rice, cider, salted cod from the coasts of New England, whale oil, indigo – that and more were harvested and gathered and shipped back to England in countless barrels made locally by a blossoming cooper trade. Molasses shipped to New England was distilled into rum and shipped accordingly worldwide. All this required the construction of tens of thousands of barrels to hold the harvested goods and precious liquids. So too in a land rich in dense forests, the wood for the construction of barrels became a much sought after commodity. Farmers in the north and mid-Atlantic colonies cleared their lands and made extra money by not only providing wood for coopers, but for shipments overseas. Some of the earliest exports from the colonies were staves (boards making up the sides of the barrel) and larger pipe staves – over four feet in length; a typical cargo could include fifty thousand or more red oak staves for shaping and assemblage by coopers in Europe. Just from the upper district of the James River, Virginia, from March 25, 1745 to June 29, 1746, 231,073 staves were exported. In 1650, a writer calculated that a man was able to make fifteen thousand pipe staves annually, which were sold to the Canary Island for 20 £ sterling; one man could yield 60 £ per year profit from the sale. The Philadelphia Gazette in 1738, advertised prices for various types of staves sold to local coopers as well as for shipment out of country: pipe staves 5 £, hogsheads 3 £ 5 shillings, and a barrel 40 shillings.
The Cooper & Cooperage
Coopers were among the highly skilled of all artisan craftsmen. There were no written measurements or patterns when constructing barrels of a specific diameter or capacity; it depended on long experience and instinct alone. The method was ‘one person, one barrel’, meaning the process of construction was from beginning to end by an individual cooper until the cask’s completion. This specialization allowed individual coopers to increase their revenues as they were paid by the cask. If they became highly proficient in one type of popular cask that met a high demand, for the industrious whose output was fast, they achieved a comfortable living. Though some farmers and large plantations constructed their own barrels, most, including merchants and shipping firms, bought casks from village coopers. Major seaports housed large cooperages in which shops obtained production contracts from shipping agents, ensuring a steady supply of customers. In any given shop, one could find individuals at many different stages of the process depending on how efficiently each person worked. The more efficient, the more money made for both the shop and individual. Often shops specialized in a specific barrel or cask. This enhanced profitability in a heightened level of proficiency.
A typical colonial America apprenticeship for new coopers was seven years. Each apprentice would learn from a master cooper; the novice was often quartered in the workshop. An apprentice was set to work fairly quickly with one skill building on top of another. They were often given a particular task to start with, such has hollowing staves. When their work received a modest nod from the master cooper, another skill would be added, such as backing staves. One by one, additional tasks were developed until the master cooper decided their novice was ready to produce a finished product. Coopers were often classified as to the type of work they performed or the type of cask fabricated.
Barrels & Cask Design
A barrel is any wooden vessel to carry or store dry or wet goods. Besides the crudely carved containers from a single trunk called gums, described later, these vessels are predominantly made from fashioning shaped boards. These staves are strapped together forming a cylindrical, hollow container with flattened seals at both ends. The edges of the staves are shaped, called jointing, so the joints, when pressed together, would be tight and the circumference uniform throughout. Barrels are either straight cylinder in design, such as pails, tubs, buckets, butter churns, and hogsheads, or bulged in the center and given the more specific name of cask. The bulged barrel or cask have two distinct advantages over the straight cylinder barrel dealing with stress and transport.
A cylinder, when smaller, like a pail or bucket, carries a minimal amount of weight and therefore produces less stress on the bonds that hold the wooden slats together. A larger cylinder, such as hogsheads, packed with dried leafy tobacco, has less stress to contend with than if carrying liquids or heavy contents. Transported hogsheads were regularly rolled to market which was fine in a straight line, but became difficult when changing direction. By proper jointing the edges of the staves, giving the barrel or cask the proper bilge (middle bulge) and convex shape, the joints become tight and circumference uniform. It provides added resistance to internal pressure and stress on the joints. This process, the most complex part of construction, is called raising the barrel. These well built casks or bilge barrels can withstand the increased internal pressures and distribute the stress evenly. As for transport, when rolled on its side, the bulging cask allows the person to change directions easily because less wood is in contact with the ground creating little surface friction.
The basic and most popular barrel in demand was an airtight, fifty two gallon (200 liter) barrel made of thirty-one to thirty-three staves with a lid at each end. The preferred wood was oak, for its density, strength, and qualities it released in the aging of spirits. Certain types of barrels were also made with pine, especially yellow pine. The lids or ends were often made of white oak. The staves were held together by wooden hoops (especially the smaller pails and buckets) made of hickory. If not wooden hoops, then often six steel hoops with twelve rivets. There were basically six types of barrels or wooden containers widely in use throughout colonial America: gum, piggins, hogsheads, slack or dry barrels & casks, tight or wet barrels & casks (in which kegs were a variety), and a series of containers labeled white coopers.
Gum Containers. The most primitive and least skilled wooden containers or barrels were those hollowed out of tree trunks called gums. There crudely constructed, unskilled containers were found among Native Americans and occasionally made by farmers. The drawback in their use was the long and laborious process required in their construction. The typical farm needed many barrels to store their harvests and sundry items, usually far beyond the number of gum containers that could be made in any one year.
Village merchants received and shipped large quantities of items as well as displaying supplies for purchase or trade. All this required many containers to hold their commodities; for both farmers and merchants, far beyond the time required to hollow out a tree trunk. Therefore, every town or settlement, no matter how remote, needed the skills of a fully employed coopers who could mass produce much needed barrels.
Piggins. Pails or cylinder containers used to store small quantities on shelves or to haul liquids such as water and milk. These lesser ‘barrels’ are made similar to their larger counterparts, without a bulge in the middle. Small staves, or wooden planks, shaped to fit together, are ‘hooped’ forming a tight fit that can hold either dry goods or liquids. The difference, besides their smaller size and lacking the bilge of larger barrels, is in keeping one stave longer than all the others which serves as a handle.
Hogsheads. These were predominantly barrels of southern usage, ideal for packing, storing and shipping dried tobacco. Cylindrical and slack, in other words not sealed tightly for liquids, they were made with even width staves so there was no bulging midriff of the cask barrels. These hogsheads were slightly larger – about four and a half feet in height and were often rolled to market by slave labor. Because all the staves were similar in width and not watertight, they required less skilled labor. Often large southern plantations with huge tobacco crops employed minimally trained slaves in the construction of hogsheads to meet shipping demands.
Slack or Dry Barrels. These were the classic bilge barrels – wooden staves shaped wider at the middle and fitted together in a cylindrical shape with the edges of each stave ‘jointed’ for a tighter fit; the center bulged outwards. As the name implies, these barrels held dried goods; rice, flour, corn meal, wheat, thrashed grains, salt, nails, fruits, vegetables, etc. Though often made of oak and chestnut, because the internal pressure of dried goods was not intense as liquids, they were also made of a softer wood, such as yellow pine. The joints of the staves did not have to be so carefully shaped for tightness as that of wet barrels which contained liquids. The wood could also be much thinner. A hard working cooper could turn out ten slack barrels in one day’s labor. Since the workmanship was rough, less experienced coopers, apprentices and even farm family members such as women and children, were employed in constructing slack barrels.
Wet or Tight Barrels
Tight or Wet coopers were the epitome in craftsmanship of their trade. Dense hardwoods were preferred, predominantly oak. The staves were thicker than slack barrels, at least an inch. The process in jointing the staves was far more refined as the joints had to be sealed tighter than slack barrels. This required more time and skill. Besides holding liquids, hence its name as wet barrels, these casks had to keep dry goods in and moisture out for longer storage periods. Gunpowder and flour casks were good examples of a tight cooper’s expertise. Ocean going vessels carried precious water in these tight barrels and employed a cooper, or sailor with coopering skills, to repair and build additional barrels as the need arose. Colonials stored their cider, milk, molassas, water, and distilled spirits in thee containers, including the infamous rum shipments during the molassas, rum, slave trade.
Aging Spirits including charring. Tight casks of oak are the favorite in aging spirits. Liquor such as scotch, brandy, and rum is stored in oak casks for several years. During the slow process, the alcohol’s contact with oak wood fibers naturally allows vanillin and tannins flavors to seep back into the liquid. This tends to break down the rougher flavors in the alcohol; the longer the alcohol is stored in the cask, the smoother the flavor. Wine producers often use white pine casks though French oak is also popular. Bourbon whiskey and some wines char or toast the barrel prior to the aging process. The interior of charred barrels are burned to a crisp. The wood sugars are caramelized and with age, the liquor retains a sweeter caramel or honey like flavor. The ash residue results in a darker color whiskey. Toasted barrels are heated more gently so the sugars did not have time to caramelize. The wood fibers add more vanilla flavor to the liquid including a spicy accent. This gives off a lighter color with a sharper taste. Charred barrels generally produce smooth, rich, sweet tasting whiskey and toasted barrels are stronger with a spicy flavor.
White Cooper
This trade of cooper was more utilitarian in household products that were an offset from the basic barrel-shaped design built to store and ship larger quantities of dry and wet goods. These lesser skilled coopers were more often found dotted around the countryside or in small towns rather than larger villages and seaports.
He produced grain measures, firkins (small cask for liquids, butter, or fish), sieves, and boxes out of wide strips of bass or poplar wood shaved thin. The thin strips of wood were rolled into cylindrical drums and riveted in shape with tacks. Bands of the same material surrounded the ends as hoops. The bottom of these boxes and measures were thin wooden disks tacked into place; the lids were made likewise. The end of a sieve was covered with crossed wires or a piece of stiff sheepskin perforated with a red-hot iron point. Besides storage vessels, white coopers also produced other wooden items such as military drums, small fireplace bellows, and shaped thick wooden soles for clogs farmers wore in the field.
Tools
Cooper’s tools are generally heavier than tools of other trades. Axes have short handles and beefy heads. The metal drivers and hammers are also short handled and weighty. Colonial tools for coopers were regularly advertised. The Virginia Gazette, known as the Purdie and Dixon Gazette after its two owners, advertised, on July 25, 1766, a list of cooper’s tools for sale: adzes, axes, jointer & irons, carpenters and cooper’s bits, vices, compasses, augers, gimlets, and drawing knives. Plantations had supplemental cooperages using slave labor to construct the many needed hogsheads. The inventory of the Nathaniel Harrison estate in 1728 presented a shop barn that among carpenters’ and wheelwrights’ tools, was a list of cooper’s implements: 1 pr. compass, 2 froes, 4 drawing knives, 1 lrg. bung borer, 2 hollowing knives, 2 joynters small, 2 heading knives, 3 cooper adze, and 3 cooper axes. The shake axe or paling knife is a tool for cleaving wood by splitting it along the grain. It is an L-shaped tool, used by hammering one edge of its blade into the end of a piece of wood in the direction of the grain, then twisting the blade in the wood by rotating the haft (handle).
Tools in order of their usage from beginning construction of a cask to finish
- Broad or Heavy ax – roughly cuts the staves (planks for barrel’s side)
- Mallet – used to hammer the froe along the wood’s grain
- Froe (shake axe or paling knife) – cleaves wood by splitting it along the grain. L-shaped, one end of the blade is hammered into the end of a piece of wood in the direction of the grain, by rotating the haft (handle) the blade is twisted in the wood thereby splitting the wood at the desired thickness for the stave
- Backing or heading knife – used to shape the outside angles of the staves so they would fit tightly forming a seal
Basic Construction
Coopers basically used broadaxes to shape rough timber into planks or staves that formed the sides of barrels. The staves were gathered into a circle and secured by a ring. It was then heated for about twenty minutes to make the staves pliant. This raising of the barrel bent the staves into shape, forming a bulge at the middle so the cask could withstand increased internal pressures upon filling. Hickory or iron hoops held the staves together for banding and further shaping. The most difficult and skill intense step involved cutting grooves inside the lips to fit the barrel heads tightly.
Detailed Description of Barrel Construction
Cutting planks. The hardest part of the tree trunk, that between the core and the outer layers, is selected from which the staves or barrel sides are cut. Flat boards of approximate length (depending on the size of barrel to be made) are cut and shaped into staves from the crosscutting section of the trunk. Froes and mallets are used for this beginning part of the process called riving the tree trunk. Using a mallet, the L-shaped froe is hammered into the end of a piece of wood in the direction of the grain. By rotating the haft or handle, the blade is twisted in the wood, thereby splitting the wood at the desired thickness for the stave.
Shaping staves. The ends of a cask are smaller in diameter than the middle or bilge, a bulge in the middle. To accommodate this, the width of the staves are cut narrower at the two ends than in the middle and the hoops. When the hoops are placed around the staves and tightened, the narrow ends are drawn in which gives the barrel a smaller diameter at the ends than in the bilge at the middle. The outside angles of the staves have to be cut so they can be snug and tight as they are fitted together forming the sides of the barrel. A backing or heading knife is used to cut the outside angles of the staves. A hollowing or drawknife shaped the inside angles of the staves. It takes a skilled eye and hand plus attention to detail to see precisely the proper radii of the cask and fit each individual stave tightly into place. This fitting process that cuts the necessary transverse arcs along the edge of the staves is done on a shaving horse and then jointer. A metal bit could be attached to the front of the shaving horse which digs into the stave so the board doesn’t slip while cutting the edge. A scrap of wood was used as a cushion for softer woods.
The initial edges of the stave is tapered using a broad ax in a process called listing. The stave is then held in the shaving horse. While sitting on this bench, the cooper runs the draw knife over the roughly cut surfaces that had been made with the broad ax during listing, further smoothing them out. Next, the stave is taken to the jointer. The bevel or slope of the edges of the stave are cut and shaped. Holding the stave upright and sideways slightly inclining, the stave is pushed over and away from the cooper and onto the blade of the jointer. A keen eye runs the stave through the jointer, several times if necessary, until he determines that the staves wil fit tightly together. Spokeshaves, which is a tool similar to a draw knife in which a single blade is set in a low angle that whittles or further shaves the wood grain to make a finer fit.
Rising up. Once the staves are shaped, they have to be readied for binding together and or heating when constructing a bilge barrel (the middle bulging outwards). A set of shaped staves are stood on end inside the raising up hoop, usually made of hickery, one at a time. The cooper tightens the hoop onto the staves by hand. Once the cooper is satisfied with the fit, the bottom hoop, or dingee hoop, is positioned tightly on the staves. This lower hoop is larger than the raising up hoop which helps form the bilge cask, bulging middle of the cask.
Trussing. For bilge casks, the wood has to be pliable. Making the cask malleable requires a process called trussing. A metal cresset (small stove), fueled with pieces of wood, is placed in the center of the cask, the bottom head is not yet fitted, and is fired. A heavy iron truss hoop is lined up over the end of the barrel using a cooper’s adze, giving a tighter fit than just using one’s hand. A windlass and hemp rope pulls the staves together so that the truss hoop can be forced down over the ends. The cask is then flipped over so it is heated evenly. On average, the wood would take about twenty minutes to be pliable however, experienced coopers know when the staves are ready to bend by the color of the smoke and the wood’s sheen. Once the cask is dry and set, it was called a gun.
Chiming. Finishing off the ends of the cask so to fit a top and bottom is labeled the chiming process. The ends are shaped to form a beveled edge that angles toward the inside of the cask. Tools used for this are an adze and cooper’s chives. The chiv applies a perfect curve to the inside of the chime (which is the inside edge of the stave). This is finished off using a topping or sun plane. A ‘V’ channel or groove called a croze was cut on the inside of the cask to accommodate and accept the circular heads. This cut was made with a croze plane, hence the name given the groove cut.
Cutting the heads. Prior to cutting the heads, measurements are taken with diagonals to achieve the proper capacity of the cask. Using a swift and or bow saw, the circular heads are cut with the help of a compass to determine the size necessary to fit into the croze. If one board is not large enough to fill the dimensions of the head, boards are attached together using dowel pins on the edges. Flagging or rush is inserted between each board to act as sealing material. A double bevel (cuts on both sides of the wood) known as a basle is shaved into the edge of the heads.
Bunghole, installing the heads & finishing. Before inserting the heads into the croze or groove cut to receive the heads, the bunghole or taphole is drilled using a cross handled auger and a pod auger (also tapered auger). This hole is needed to aide in positioning the heads during installation. To add the heads, the barrel staves are stood upright and held together with truss hoops. The truss hoop on bottom is loosened and the head without the bunghole is placed close to the bottom croze (grooves cut in the ends). The head is then tapped lightly into the bottom croze from inside the cask. The top truss hoop is loosened slightly and the head with the bunghole is lined up in the center of the staves. A heading device tool is placed inside the bunghole and the head is pulled up until it is seated into the upper croze of the staves.
To finish, the truss hoops are removed and a final sanding and planing takes place. The staves would be shaved to make them flush with one another on the outside of the cask. Permanent hoops are inserted and hammered into place using a hammer and driver.
Time-frame to completion. Individual coopers worked on a single container from start to finish. Depending on the experience and industrious nature of the cooper, plus the cask size, the average barrel, from start to finish, took about fifteen hours. Coopers were paid by the barrel, so they would not want to go any length of time without finishing a product. Staves could not be mass produced in some kind of assembly line of barrel construction. There were no patterns or calculations to follow when putting the pieces together. Every barrel was unique based on the staves that were cut and grooved prior to fitting together. Thomas Jefferson, in 1800, had the closest thing to an assembly line. He wrote that he expected the coopers at his grist mill to turn out an average of 5 flour barrels a day each. He did not specify the length of the work day, however plantation laborers were commonly required to work from dawn to dusk. Depending on the time of year, summer having the longest days, it was still an incredible output for something so labor intensive. From Jefferson’s comments, it appears his coopers were able to achieve their quota through the help of slave labor. Though a cooper would perform every aspect of barrel construction from start to finish, Jefferson’s slaves would cut and do the rough shaping of the staves before given over to the cooper to bind them and cut the grooves.
Cooperage. A cooperage in a small village or hamlet would often be a one man affair with occasional apprentice. Larger towns required either more coopers or a larger cooperage with either a partnership or more coopers employed. Seaports, where the demand for containers to ship vast quantities of goods overseas required large cooperages with many workers. As previously stated, there was no assembly line type construction involved in barrel making, even for sizable operations, the saying held true, one man one barrel. A cooper would have his own personal area and tools, but would also take his unfinished cask to set stations to continue the process of assemblage. Shaving horses and jointers may be in separate areas shared by all workers. So too some of the larger tools may be shared and left at various locations for common use. A cooperage would typically have a ‘chimney corner’ – essentially a fireplace large enough for several workers to truss (heat and bend) two or more casks at a time; the wood taking on average about twenty minutes to heat before it became pliable.
Hoops to bound the staves together of both wood and metal. For centuries, hoops to hold the barrels and casks tightly together was of both wood and metal. Even after 1800, when the use of metal replaced most wooden hoops, hogsheads, smaller buckets or ‘piggins’, and those casks for exported dry goods, continued to use woods for binding. Hickory, harder than oak which was the chosen wood for the staves, was often used to bind the sides together. Saplings were split in half and bent while green, cut to size, then held together by cutting notches at either end. Metal hoops were usually of iron, though in the case of casks to hold gunpowder – copper or brass was more common. Metal hoops had been in use for centuries. The Roman author and naturalist, Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), who died in 79 AD, wrote that the Gauls stored their wine in wooden containers that were held together with metal hoops. The metal material was produced and sold to coopers as cooper’s hoop iron, including the rivets, by the same iron mills that produced nail rods for smiths. The bending and riveting to form the hoops were hammered without the use of a forge, but done cold.
Present Day Coopers. Prior to the mid-20th century, the cooper’s trade flourished in the United States. The National Cooper’s Journal had been a mainstay for years right through the early part of the century with advertisements from countless firms that supplied the cooper with barrel staves, tools, and ready made machinery. Plastic, stainless steel, pallets, and corrugated cardboard replaced mosst wooden containers during the last half of the 20th century. However, one aspect of the barrel making trade has remained strong, though with far fewer players; the wine, beer, and liquor cask production that continues the tradition of aging these liquids in wooden barrels.
An example of one company excelling in the continued construction of barrels and casks is the Independent Stave Company or ISC. A recent article in Woodworking Network reported that ISC will build a $66.5 million cooperage in Morehead, northern Kentucky, creating 220 jobs. As stated; “with both a stave mill and cooperage in the region, ISC hopes sto fulfill the extreme demand from the bourbon and whiskey industry. According to the article: “ISC, a family-owned cooperage company headquartered in Missouri, reaches distilleries, wineries, and breweries in more than forty countries. The Boswell family founded the company in 1912, first as a domestic supplier of staves, and today as a cooperage company crafting a wide range of barrels from oak found in Missouri forests. The company owns seven stave mills in total: one in northeastern France and six American oak mills.” They advertise that they make spirit barrels, wine barrels, oak alternatives, staves & heading, and mulch.
Want to Learn More about Coopers, Artisans, and life in Colonial America? Check out these books on Amazon. Click the underlined title for a free preview.
Everyday Life in Early America
The Dreadful, Smelly Colonies: The Disgusting Details About Life in Colonial America
The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Colonial America, 1607-1783
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Hatter to Hero: American Revolution Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs; Battles of Quebec & Stony Point.
Lighting Colonial Homes – Candles & Much More
Meat & Game in Colonial America
History of Dentistry in the 18th Century
Cordwainers & Cobblers, Shoemakers in Colonial America
Colonial Pocket & Folding Knives – History of the Barlow Knife
Maple Sugaring in Colonial America
Meat & Game in Colonial America
Dutch Ovens & Camp Cooking in Washington’s Continental Army
Cultivating Corn during the American Colonial Period
SOURCE
Bridenbaugh, Carl. The Colonial Craftsman. Reprint 2012: Dover Publications, New York, NY.
Colonial Williamsburg Digetal Library by Raymond R. Townsend, 1963
The Cooper: Colonial Maker of Barrels & Casks
Cooper Tool Museum, Sussex, UK
Hawley, Ken. The Hawley Collection at Kelham Island Museum. Photographs courtesy of Shire Publications. June 2011, Sheffield, UK.
Hawley Collection Kelham Island Museum
Kalman, Bobbie & DeBiasi, Antoinette. Colonial Crafts Historic Communities. 1992: Crabtree Publishing Company, New York, NY.
Making Circles – Colonial Williamstown
National Cooper’s Journal. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1918: Vol. 34, digitized in 2011 by the New York Public Library.
Seybolt, Robert Francis PhD. Apprenticeship & Apprenticeship Education in Colonial New England & New York.1917: Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY.
Tallmadge, Thomas. The Colonial Village, A Reproduction of Early American Life in the Thirteen Colonies. 1934: Ben Franklin Print Shop at the Colonial Village, Pennsylvania.
Tunis, Edwin. Colonial Craftsmen and the Beginnings of American Industry. 1965: The World Publishing Company, Cleveland, OH.
Wright, Carrol. Comparative Wages, Prices, and Cost of Living, Historical Review of Wages and Prices… 1889: Boston, Massachusetts.