I live and work in rural West Virginia on a 56-acre homestead. My wife and I moved here in 1976 to flee the urban sprawl of metropolitan Washington and raise a family in these tranquil surroundings. My love of trees and mountains first drew me to this beautiful state. I knew at the time, however, that I wanted to work with wood, and the accessibility of fine Appalachian hardwoods made this area even more appealing.
In 1977, I started an informal apprenticeshipat the Linger Chair Factory in Rock Cave, West Virginia. This business had been manufacturing cant hook handles since the early 1900s, with chairs as a sideline. When the cant hook business began to taper off in the 1930s, the chairs became more of a production item, mostly for local comsumption.
When I started working there part-time, I was the only employee and we were open only on weekends. At times, the factory had employed up to 20 people, each of whom performed a separate task, so that no one ever really learned the whole process of chairmaking. When I started, however, the owner let me train at different stations from week to week until I learned all of the stages.
At the time, I wasn't told the reason for drying the rungs, or keeping the posts relatively green, or making the side mortises intersect and overlap those on the front. The reasons became clear when I later read John D. Alexander's book Make A Chair From A Tree: An Introduction to Green Woodworking, which explained the traditional chairmaking techniques I had learned as an apprentice.
