Woodworkers build special cabinet for Lothian church

Yet when the church's library committee members decided they needed a new cabinet to house and protect centuries-old artifacts, they didn't go shopping at Ikea. They called on the 225-member Annapolis Woodworkers Guild.

The result is a stunning 9-foot-tall hand-built masterpiece, glistening from hours of hand polishing and redolent with the smell of freshly cut wood.

The church plans a blessing of the cabinet in the early fall.

Renee Wilson, treasurer of the church's library committee, contacted the guild after her in-laws, Leona and Oswald Wilson, died last year.

"They had campaigned for a cabinet to house the church's old books and records," Mrs. Wilson said. "In their will they established a memorial fund to build the cabinet."

The guild is already involved in a number of charitable projects, including rebuilding the garden gates at the Hammond-Harwood House and recreating a Chinese Chippendale garden bench at the William Paca House, both in Annapolis.

"This one was a natural," said woodworker Harlan Ray of Davidsonville.

He responded to the call, along with Don Ames, Neal McCoy and Dennis Scrivens. Like football widows whose husbands virtually disappear during football season, their wives became woodcraft widows as the project consumed the men's lives for more than a month.

The four guesstimate they spent more than 400 hours crafting the floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcase.

The church's rector, the Rev. Ticknor said the parish has the oldest parochial lending library in the United States. It was set up in 1698 to lend books to the poor free of charge - the wealthy owned their own private libraries.

The library has two books from its original trove it wants to preserve: a 1696 theology book written in Latin and a volume of 16 sermons by the archbishop of Canterbury, John Tillotson, published in 1683.

The books probably survived, the rector surmised with a chuckle, because "I don't think they were heavily circulated. I don't think the poor could read one, or be interested in the other."

The cabinet will also display a Bible published in 1838 and a full-color atlas of Anne Arundel County dated 1878. The Wilson farm and those of other old families in the area are clearly marked.

"The cabinet was constructed from walnut trees that once shaded the nearby Wilson farmhouse," said Mr. McCoy, of Chester.

Oswald Wilson had once run a mill on his property, long before he began growing tobacco, he explained. He
sawed some trees into planks and left them in his barn, where they lay forgotten for several decades. The guild members recovered them and cut them into usable boards.

Mr. Ames, of Annapolis, noted that the cabinets' hardware and knobs are copies of styles popular in 17th century England.

The UV glass in the upper doors and the moisture-absorbing materials that will be placed inside the cabinet are 20th century inventions to preserve the books.

The cabinet features a method of adjusting shelves popular in Colonial times. It was built with square-cut nails. The doors are mortise and tendon joined with pegs. Its elegant moldings were handmade.

Across the top the Latin inscription ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (The Greater Glory of God) is painstakingly hand-carved, as are various religious symbols.

More personal symbols are tucked away, unlikely to be seen by anyone alive today. The four woodworkers all signed the piece on its reverse, and in a small niche, they inlaid a shiny 2004 penny.

In creating their work of art, the guild members used long-forgotten woodworking methods. However, they're not Luddites: In crafting furniture and myriad objects from wood, they often blend Old World techniques with modern technology. They used modern table saws, routers and planers to build the cabinet.

"Heck," harrumphed Mr. Scrivens, of Arnold, "if it weren't for modern tools, we'd still be doing it."

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Wendi Winters is a freelance writer in the Broadneck area.

Published 06/25/04, Copyright © 2004 The Capital, Annapolis, Md.