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Experience the Life
: Trades
: Cooper
Today in Colonial Williamsburg, the master cooper, his journeymen, and apprentices create casks and pails at the Ludwell-Paradise Stable on Nicholson St.
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Ancient trade
The art of coopering dates back centuries, and the basic trade
has remained unchanged. Coopering requires skill, intelligence,
and strength. The tools of the trade are often handed down for generations.
Coopers crafted casks which:
- Held flour, gunpowder, tobacco, and other commodities
- Served as shipping containers
- Stored liquids from wine to milk
Many colonial coopers worked on plantations to produce the many
hogsheads needed to ship tobacco from Virginia to Great Britain.
Other coopers worked in towns like Williamsburg, turning staves
and hoops into everything from butter churns to tubs. Large plantations
often trained slaves in the trade. Coopers could also be found on
military and merchant vessels, since casks were common aboard ships.
Listen to a Behind the Scenes Interview:
Making Barrels.
Ramona Vogel's love of woodworking led her to the Worshipful Company of Coopers.
 (MP3, 3.3Mb) || View transcript
Listen to a "Behind the Scenes" Interview:
Coopering.
Apprentice cooper Marshall Scheetz discusses the art and science of making barrels.
(MP3, 2.8Mb)) || View transcript
These interviews are part of an ongoing series of podcasts available on the Colonial Williamsburg site.
Learn more. |
Finest casks held liquid
Today, coopers are often called "barrel makers," but
a barrel is only one kind of cask, one made by what was known as
a "tight cooper." Other casks included the firkin, kilderkin,
hogshead, butt, rundlet, tierce, puncheon, and pipe. The tight cooper
assembled clear white oak staves split from the dense center of
a tree. He fit the staves one to another, and bound them with iron
to make casks for liquids of all sorts.
A "slack cooper" built containers for such commodities
as flour and tobacco. "White" coopering produced pails,
churns, tubs, and dippers, often made of cedar or pine.
Casks, barrels, buckets, and pails found throughout
Williamsburg
The coopers in the Historic Area of Colonial
Williamsburg shape their staves with broadaxes, planes, and drawknives,
and then gather them in a circle secured by a ring. The gathered
staves are heated over a small stove or cresset to make them pliant
and the heated staves are then bent into shape. Hickory hoops hold
them for banding. The trickiest step is cutting grooves inside the
lips to fit the barrelheads tightly. Today, the coopering trade
is alive and well in Colonial Williamsburg and the results of the
coopers' work can be seen throughout the Historic Area.
For further reading:
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Historic Triangle