Shaker Shed

The original proprietors enlarged the basic structure twice over a period of thirteen years: in 1850 an addition of one and a half upper stories provided storage space for brooms made and sold by the Canterbury community, and in 1853 the Shakers added a shed to the rear of the building to store their farm machinery.

The American building trade became highly specialized: sawyers would work in teams to saw boards and planks from felled timber; carpenters would frame houses, lay floors, and build staircases; joiners focused on finer work, such as fitting joints, framing doors and windows, and preparing paneling, moldings and trim; while cabinetmakers, who employed many of the same skills as joiners, created chests-of-drawers, desks, tables, and other furniture.

Ranging from small water and liquor kegs to 206-gallon hogsheads, their barrels stored goods including tobacco, whale oil, whiskey, molasses, flour, apples, sugar, and hardware.

Household appliances such as water tubs, sap buckets, butter churns, milk pails, and drinking or ladling mugs called piggins, reflected the extensive reach of a cooper's trade.

The United States 1850 census recorded 43,000 practicing coopers, but by the late nineteenth century, the introduction of metal drums and other machine-made storage and shipping containers greatly diminished the demand for wooden cooperage, so that today the craft is almost nonexistent.