Accession Number

1986.008.0777

Alternate object names

Bit

Creation Date

circa 1620

Description

A carpenter’s “twist auger” was designed to make holes in wood. The working end of the long, iron shaft has a twisted, cutting blade, and at the other end there would have been a wooden “T” handle. To use the device, a pilot mark would have been set in the wood at the point where the hole was to be. The point of the cutting end placed there, and the handle was leaned on and turned with two hands to spin the shaft downward into the wood and create a hole the same width as the blade. The foot-long shaft allowed for holes of significant depth to be produced.

Exhibition Label

Case Caption (2023):

THE CARPENTER & THE COOPER

A galleon had to be repaired constantly. Storms snapped masts and spars, salt spray corroded iron straps and fasteners. Sailing in the tropics posed additional hazards as barnacles and other destructive sea life attacked the hull and warm water encouraged every part of a wooden ship to rot.

Every galleon carried professional carpenters and coopers. These men brought their own equipment and kept their chisels and knives sharp using a rotating grindstone. A cooper, so called for his experience making barrels, was also the ship’s blacksmith, fashioning iron bar “blanks” into replacement parts as required. The carpenter made all the structural repairs to the hull and bulkheads but would look to the cooper for his supply of nails and fasteners. The carpenter had to know how to build a longboat from scratch. He also had to be capable of constructing a boat that could carry survivors to safety if the ship wrecked far from a port.

One of the carpenters on the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, either Pedro de Huerta or Juan de Barte, marked his tools XXX to make sure they did not get stolen. Both men drowned. Aboard the Santa Margarita, the coopers, Gerónimo de León and Juan Miguel, were both lucky enough to survive, as did Diego de la Rocha, a carpenter on their ship.
Object Caption (2023):

Auger Bit
Iron (c.1620)
Gift of Jamestown Inc.
1986.008.0777