KENT—”Hewing to a straight line” used to be a phrase that described living in an upright and solid way, but few today know the origins of the saying or its importance in the everyday lives of Early Americans.
The phrase originates in the ability of a worker to shape a log into a square using only an axe or adze to cut away the rounded portion to a line marked on the bark, making it useful for building a cabin or a barn. Faced with a forest of trees and no local lumberyard, it was a skill vital to families moving into the wilderness.
The late artist Eric Sloane, who made his home in Kent, immortalized the process in books such as “A Reverence for Wood,” “A Museum of Early American Tools,” and “Diary of an Early American Boy: Noah Blake 1805.”
Sloane even went so far as to recreate Blake’s hand-hewn cabin on the grounds of the Eric Sloane Museum, located at 31 Kent Cornwall Road.
So, it was befitting that Oct. 5 a group of would-be hewers gathered on the lawn next to that cabin to learn the art from modern-day hewer Nevan Carling of Little King Timber Works in Hartford.
He came to Kent to teach the woodworking method as part of the Sloane Museum’s artist residency program, which brings various artisans to the site to demonstrate their skills.
“This is the third year we have had the hewing program, and it always sells out, said Andrew Rowand, curator and site administrator of the museum. “It brings Sloane’s work to life and gives you an idea of the work that went into building an Early American structure.”
Indeed, some of those taking part in the all-day class were feeling the strain by mid-day.
Mason Lord of Kent, co-founder of the historic preservation company Hudson Valley Preservation, said he had never before tried hewing logs and “you have to do it.” But he predicted he would be sore the following day.
He said he encounters the handicraft of Early American hewers frequently during his preservation work.
Max Smith, who teaches woodworking at the Hudson River Maritime Museum at 50 Rondout Landing in Kingston, N.Y., said his back was already sore.
“I am here to make big pieces of wood into small pieces,” he said whimsically. “This is all new to me, but it’s a privilege.”
His fatigue was relieved by Carling, who demonstrated how to chop into the log without straining the back.
Rowand said that the skill was replaced for home builders when bigger sawmills began to dot the landscape in the 18th century “but it never really went away, especially for historic preservation.”
He said there is an enduring interest in knowing how to hew logs and classes like the one held at Sloane Museum help to expand that knowledge.
The logs used at the event had been donated by Sawing High Climbers, arborists from South Kent.
