distaff suide of planemaking recognized in Canadian guide, The

Book Note

Guide to Imprints of Canadian Plane Makers and Hardware Dealers. The MacLachlan Woodworking Museum (Kingston, Ontario: MacLachlan Woodworking Museum, 2002)

As a supplement to W L. Goodman's British Plane Makers from 1700 and Emil and Martyl Pollak's A Supplement to 4merican Wooden Planes, the MacLachlan Woodworking Museum has published their own Guide to Imprints of Canadian Plane Makers and Hardware Dealers. This modest volume-little more than a pamphlet-itemizes the known imprints and wedge profiles of all known Canadian plane makers and hardware dealers who used their own imprint on planes before selling them.

In all, there are some seventy-five different imprints covered in the book, although, as usual, many of the companies, as they were bought out or changed principal owner, continued to produce planes under several different imprints. Excluding the hardware dealers, the Guide lists eighteen family names of planemakers, and some thirty-one different makers. Interestingly, there are several women who are listed as toolmakers, including Mrs. Sem Dalpe, Anna Monty, and Mrs. Alex Wallace.

In the case of Mrs. Wallace, it appears that she took over her husband's business in Montreal between 1858 and 1862. The company remained at the same address from 1845 to 1885. The Alexander Wallace who appears to have been stamping planes in Canada after 1845 may be the same Alexander Wallace listed by W. L. Goodman as a planemaker from Dundee, Scotland, active between 1824 and 1834. Sixty years is a long time for Alex to have been making planes on his own. There may have been some sons or brothers, or trusted employees involved here who continued the business after the founder's death.

Anna Monty took over the A. Monty Co. of Roxton Pond, Quebec, from her husband, Adelard, in 1929. Adelard took it over from Arthur Monty who got it from S. Dalpe on his demise in 1894. That same company, when it was owned by the Dalpe family of Roxton Pond, Quebec, was run by Mrs. Sem Dalpe before her husband died.

In all, planes seem to have emanated from Roxton Pond, Quebec, from roughly 1861 until 1908, when the Stanley Company appears to have gained an interest in the company.

For the few companies that were well-positioned, toolmaking was a highly profitable business in nineteenth-century Canada, and it appears that women frequently took over going concerns when their management expertise was needed. It would be interesting to know if any of these women were actual planemakers as opposed to company managers.

The MacLachlan Woodworking Museum is a rara avia itself, a museum dedicated almost exclusively to the collection of woodworking planes and tools. This modest museum, located ten miles east of Kingston, Ontario, on Route 2, consists of a log cabin demonstration and display building and a larger storage and lecture hall. The museum has the largest collection of woodworking tools in North America, over five thousand tools from the woodworking trades, including barrelmaking, carriage and wagonmaking, splint weaving, basketmaking, blacksmithing, logging, saw milling, lumbering, barn and house construction, and even clogmaking.

In addition to the publication of the Guide to Imprints of Canadian Plane Makers and Hardware Dealers, the museum has also reprinted the 1889 Price List and Catalogue of Sem. Dale of Roxton Pond, Quebec.

Copyright Early American Industries Association Dec 2002
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