Wheelwright

The valley's roads shake every wagon in the hollow to pieces on a reliable schedule, and we put them back together. You build and mend the wheels, axles, and the great winter sleighs.

The work

• Select and season the oak; read the timber for what will stay true.
• Cut the spokes and felloes and build the wheel.
• Tire the wheels with the smith.
• Mend cart-axles and build the great sleighs that fly to church over the winter snows.

Context

• Reports to the blacksmith.
• Autumn is the peak; the rough roads deliver the work on time, every year.
• Pay is £30–40 New York currency per annum (~$75–100 in silver dollars).
• In-person at the shop, alongside the forge.

Recorded in the parish register of Sleepy Hollow, autumn of 1799.

• Trained in the wheel trade or a near one — cooperage and joinery count.
• Reads timber: knows what will stay true and what will not.
• Can hold a farmer's deadline through the autumn crush.

Not a fit if a deadline in the crush would tempt you to use green oak.

Forge and farriery at the bend in the road — the only smithy in the hollow, so every horse, hinge, and ploughshare in the valley comes through our doors.

Who we are

A master smith plus two at the anvils. The book is full weeks ahead and we turn away nothing with four legs or made of iron.

How we work

Piece-rate above the day-wage: good work is visible here, and rewarded. The queue is set at the forge, not by the customers, and no shortcuts are taken on wagon-tires — lives ride on them.

Who thrives here

Anyone who wants their work judged by what comes off the anvil, and who can keep a weeks-long waiting list moving without spoiling a job.

Recorded in the parish register of Sleepy Hollow, autumn of 1799.