Early Americans used tools for a variety of purposes. Especially during colonial times, women spun their own yarn with a spinning wheel and used a churn to make butter. They also made textiles with their own looms, and wooden buckets and pewter pitchers assisted them in their household chores. Farmers also needed a variety of tools, such as axes to clear the land, cut firewood and build fences. To construct houses, they needed tools such as hammers, saws, hatchets, axes and planes. The fishermen of New England needed similar tools to build their ships, as well as other tools for fishing. For example, the mackerel plow, a cutting instrument, was made of slate and featured a curved wooden handle; it helped fishermen clean mackerel.
The manufacture of early American tools differed from current practices as America did not enjoy mass production in factories until well into the 19th century. The metal parts of the tools were hand-forged by blacksmiths, and the buyers crafted the wooden parts. The buyers generally applied a degree of artistic finesse as they worked. Sometimes they applied religious symbols, such as the initials INRI, an abbreviation of the words that appeared on the cross of Jesus. Individuals and even families would often impress a characteristic form upon their tools, so that a person could tell who made it simply by looking at the workmanship, according to "A Museum of Early American Tools," by Eric Sloane.
Some early American tools may seem unusual to the average urban resident. The broad axe was a hewing tool to give timber a proper shape for construction. Some were called "goosewing" axes because the bit extended outward from the handle, then downward, giving it a wing-like appearance. The mortise axe looked like a wide chisel with a perpendicular handle attached near the blunt end. It was possible to use it like a chisel by pounding on the blunt end. A drawknife had a handle at each end, both perpendicular to the blade and extending in the same direction as the sharp end of the blade. The users drew the knife toward themselves by the two handles when cutting.
Some tools give a vivid insight into how early Americans lived. The snowball hammer, a small metal hammer about 6-inches long, was used to knock snow and ice off horses' hooves in winter, thus revealing the mode of transportation that the tool's owner used. The chimney crane shows how early Americans cooked before Franklin invented his stove. It was a pot hanger attached to the fireplace on a hinge so that it could swivel to and fro, which enabled the lady of the house to swing the pot directly over the fire when the dinner was ready to cook.