  The formal duties of an apprentice and his master toward each other were spelled out in an indenture signed by each when the apprenticeship began. Dickinson was probably an apprentice to Hay and may have been a journeyman employee of Bucktrout in the same shop before himself becoming its master. In turn, Dickinson took on an apprentice by the name of James Tyrie who would help him and be taught the cabinetmaking craft. In the agreement between them the master undertook that:
For his part, Tyrie pledged that he:
What happened to Tyrie we do not know. Perhaps the coming of the War for Independence holds the key to his destiny; perhaps he, like many another apprentice, ran away from his master. One of Bucktrout’s apprentices, David Davis, took off one day wearing a whole new suit of clothing and new shoes. The important circumstance, however, was that an apprenticeship of up to seven years was the normal—indeed the only—way for a boy to gain entry into the business world. It was also the normal source to the master of a constantly renewed supply of cheap, unskilled labor. Artifacts from the site of Anthony Hay’s cabinetmaking shop: (1) unfinished table leg, walnut; (2) fragment of an oboe, boxwood with brass stops; (3) crest rail of a chair in the Chippendale style; (4 to 12) cabinet fittings, brass, including ornamental column base from a tall case clock (6) and a chair caster (7); and (13 to 18) carpenter’s tools, all of iron and heavily encrusted with rust. Redrawn from photographs. Three other sources of help were available to him: wage-earning journeymen, indentured servants, and slaves—all of whom might be skilled workers in the craft. Williamsburg cabinetmakers advertised from time to time in the Virginia Gazette for the services of capable journeymen, a circumstance that argues both the need of the proprietors for help and the availability of potential helpers. As to any specific workers they may have acquired in this category, the record is silent. Other advertisements listed joiners and cabinetmakers among the cargoes of ships bringing indentured passengers whose services for a period were to be auctioned off to the highest bidder or sold for a fixed fee. But no evidence has been found that any Williamsburg cabinetmaker augmented his work force with indentured servants. Formal apprenticeship of Negro slaves was not uncommon, and many examples can be cited of Negroes who became skilled workers even without the formality. The largest number in and around Williamsburg seem to have been carpenters, but other crafts had skilled and semi-skilled practitioners who were slaves. Peter Scott, for example, owned “two Negroes, bred to the Business of a Cabinet-maker,” and Anthony Hay owned a “very good” slave cabinetmaker even after he turned from that trade to innkeeping. However, no instance has come to light from colonial Virginia of a Negro, even a freedman, who became a journeyman or master of any craft. |
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