The familiar carpenter’s handsaw, with a blade wide and stiff enough to cut on the push stroke, was not unknown in colonial times and Dickinson apparently had one. But various kinds of frame and back saws were much more common. Dickinson had one large frame saw—its valuation at £5 indicates it must have been of good quality as well as good-sized—that was probably a pit saw. This was a two-man affair for ripping logs into boards. A whip saw (one of these was also listed) was like a modern two-man crosscut saw.

Dickinson also possessed a small frame saw, a bow saw, a “tenant” (tenon) saw, a panel saw, a sash saw, and three dovetail saws. The latter three, called “dovetailed” in the inventory, were back saws with short blades and very fine teeth. The tenon saw might have been either a back or a frame saw, as both varieties were used in cutting the tenons for mortise joints. Vagaries in craft nomenclature leave us in doubt about the precise appearance of many tools, including Dickinson’s panel and sash saws.

Except that it was doubtless made of wood rather than steel and had a somewhat different chuck, Dickinson’s bit stock would have resembled the boring brace in any modern tool box. His “20 bitts,” however, probably lacked the spiral shank of their present descendants and thus required considerably more skill on the part of the user to bore a straight hole.

Chisels and gouges, of which Dickinson had a total of 53, have not changed in appearance or structure over many centuries. Like other tools, they come in different shapes and sizes and some possess special designs for special purposes. Of Dickinson’s collection, 47 were carving chisels and gouges, which argues that he did his own carving. However, one of the two carvers known to have worked in eighteenth-century Williamsburg was George Hamilton, a journeyman in Dickinson’s shop in 1774. The other, James Wilson, worked with or for Anthony Hay some twenty years earlier.

Dickinson’s “6 Morticeing Chissels”—along with his “tenant” saw and fitting planes—serve as reminders that the basic techniques of cabinetmaking have likewise changed little through the years.

In the making of an article of furniture the component pieces must be attached to each other at various points: sometimes side-by-side with grain running parallel, sometimes end to end, or end into side, or crossing one another. At each juncture the cabinetmaker had his choice of a number of joints that were appropriate in such a situation. The eighteenth-century craftsman knew them all and was skilled in the making of all those used today: butt, lap, rabbet, tongue and groove, mortise and tenon, mitre, dado, dovetail, and their numerous combinations and variations.

In cabinetmaking the most useful joints are undoubtedly the mortise and tenon and the dovetail, the former for joining structural members at right angles, the latter for holding together adjacent sides of drawers, chests, boxes, and the like. Both kinds of joints are very strong if well made, weak if poorly fitted. Skill and experience, thus, were (and are) prerequisite to good furniture making.