Up and down the coast of America grew an enormous variety of trees, both evergreen and deciduous. All of them found some use in the colonial home, from rough-hewn structural members to finely crafted furniture—and even to common hairbrushes and combs. In 1774 William Aylett of King William County, 50 miles from Williamsburg, advertised: PLANK and SCANTLING to be sold by the Subscriber at his Saw Mill near _Aylett_’s Warehouse, _Mattapony_ River, upon the most reasonable Terms, and of the following Kinds, _viz._ White Oak, Black Walnut, Sweet Gum, Ash, Poplar, Birch (which makes elegant Furniture) best Yellow Heart Pine for Flooring, and clear of Heart and Sap if required, common high Land and Slash Pine for other Uses.... Almost anything could be made of wood, and almost everything was, including many of the articles we today are familiar with in steel, iron, copper, aluminum, alloys, plastics, and rubber. Pitchforks, tableware and kitchen utensils, wheels, axles, gears and bearings, tool handles and sometimes the bodies of tools, all were made, at least in part, of wood. _THE WOODWORKING CRAFTS_ The variety of woodworking crafts was almost as great as the variety of trees. In Williamsburg alone—and Williamsburg was by no means an important center in this respect—mention has been found of all the following during colonial times: cabinetmaker carpenter carver chairmaker chaisemaker chariotmaker coachmaker cooper gunstocker joiner millwright sawyer shipwright wheelwright woodcutter In addition, there were such related crafts as upholsterer, lumber merchant, gilder, japanner, and coach painter. Eighteenth-century Williamsburg was not, however, quite so crowded with woodworking craftsmen as this list would indicate. For if the guild traditions of the Old World required that each operation be the monopoly of a specific craft, in the New World practical needs tended to force a merging of related crafts. Only in a few of the big colonial cities—Philadelphia, New York, Boston, or Charleston—was demand great enough to keep some of the specialists going. Elsewhere the craftsmen of town or village had to be versatile—or go hungry. A Williamsburg cabinetmaker, thus, was likely to be also joiner, carver, and upholsterer—and probably undertaker as well. [Illustration: _This illustration from Diderot’s famous eighteenth-century encyclopedia of the arts and sciences shows the interior and lumber yard of a large European joinery. Workers inside the shop are making, carving, and fitting various elements of paneling. Outside, to the right, two others are ripping a length of scantling with a pit saw._]