Medium Hollow Plane
Dateca.1780-1800
Maker
Simeon Pomeroy
1754 - 1842
MediumBirch, iron, and steel
DimensionsLength: 9 3/4"; thickness: 1 1/16"
Credit LineGift of Thomas Elliott
Object number2024-307
DescriptionMedium hollow plane with flat chamfers that terminate with a line and a turn-out, a relieved wedge, and a molded shoulder. Front lobe of wedge finial missing.Label TextPassing away when his son Simeon was only six years old, cabinetmaker Capt. John Pomeroy left behind thirty-six planes of various sorts. Simeon followed in his father's footsteps and became a house joiner, cabinetmaker, and planemaker.Pomeroy, as a Private in the Northampton Militia, marched for the Lexington Alarm on April 20, 1775, and was present for the opening of the Siege of Boston. He enlisted for further service as a Fifer in the 8th Massachusetts Regiment, serving a total of three months, one week, and four days, mostly in the American lines at Dorchester.
While many other makers of woodworking planes made them solely for their own use, Pomeroy became skilled enough to make them for sale. Out of his shop "about a quarter mile north of the meeting house in Northampton," he offered in the May 10, 1797 issue of The Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, MA);
"Joiners, Nosing, Fore & Smooth Planes, Rabbits, Astragals, Ovolos, Hollows & Rounds, Ploughs, Quirk & Plain O.Gee's, Match, Beads, Halfing Planes, Quarter Rounds, Sash Planes, Moving Gages" which he described as "of various sizes, made of excellent beech timber."
The irons for many of Simeon's early 19th c. planes were made by Seth Pomeroy, a blacksmith, gunsmith, and kinsman, in all likelihood. His son Thomas, a joiner working in Windsor, Vermont, took in his ageing father in 1832.
Inscription(s)Price of "9" (ninepence) inked on top of body in front wedge.Mark(s)The toe of the plane marked with S*POMEROY over N+HAMPTON in relief within two rectangles (Elliott, AWP, p.295, imprint A).ProvenanceJuly 1991, purchased by Thomas Elliott (Westbrook, CT); 2024, given to The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, VA)
ca. 1720-1784