Tuesday, May 25, 2021

We used to make things in this country, #324, James Swetman planes


 According to Yesterday's Tools, this is the first documentation of a planemaker in Canada. The ad ran in local newspapers for a couple of years. James Swetman had been a plane maker in England before he emigrated to the US. He shows up as a partner in the planemaking company of Swetman, Hughes & Co in Pittsburgh around 1820 before he moved on Cincinnati and soon to Montreal. For a man involved in the solid business of making edged tools, he seemed to move around a lot.  He died in the Cholera epidemic of 1832.

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