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Liberty Tool Company, Liberty, Maine

Mining for Historical Gems in Tons of Ore

by Mark Sisco

What would you get if you combined an antiques dealer, a college history professor, an environmentalist, a savvy businessman, and a peripatetic pack rat? We're not sure just what you'd get, but chances are it would look a lot like Skip Brack.

Brack is the major-domo behind the Jonesport Wood Company, the Liberty Tool Company, and most recently the Davistown Museum, all based in Liberty and Hulls Cove, Maine. He started his antique tool business 35 years ago in Jonesport and, about 16 years later, opened the shop in Liberty as an outlet for workingmen's tools and other culch.

But it's the Davistown Museum that caps his achievements. The name comes from the original 17th-century plantation issued by the Council for New England under King Charles I, one of the three major proprietary patents issued for what is now coastal Maine.

"It [the museum] opened about five years ago," Brack said. "Of course the basic premise of the whole thing is to search for the woodworking tools," but the scope of the museum goes far beyond planes and screwdrivers. It has a fourfold mission statement, spelled out on its Web site (www.davistownmuseum.org):

<195> To recover, display, and interpret the hand tools of Maine and New England's maritime culture.

<195> To serve as a clearinghouse for information on the history of hand tools and their role in the early industries and technologies of Maine and New England.

<195> To increase community awareness of and access to information on local, regional, Native American, and environmental history.

<195> To provide a forum for contemporary Maine artists to exhibit their work, creating an environment that is an ongoing installation of conceptual, assemblage, abstract, and traditional art in juxtaposition with the exhibition of tools as both historical and sculpture objects.

So if you take a stroll through Liberty (it won't take long, Main Street is just about all there is), you'll get history and culture with the museum on the north side of the road and tool commerce on the south. And if you come on opening day for the tool company—this year it was March 6—be prepared for shoulder-to-shoulder crowds searching through hundreds of thousands of tools, widgets, gimcracks, and three floors full of packed shelves and aisles.

Brack's buying modus operandi is simple but thoroughly effective. "I'm the buyer. I'm the only buyer," he insisted. "I never go to auctions. I went to one auction and paid too much for a few things, and I've never been back to an auction, and I don't buy from any dealers. So all this is salvage, right out of on the way to the dump."

Brack spends about $50,000 per year running classified ads in 165 New England newspapers, resulting in buying trips every two weeks. He brings back an average of two or three tons of salvage per trip that he and his staff painstakingly paw through. The museum-worthy stuff goes to one side of the street, the salable merch to the other.

Like mining for diamonds in acres of ore, some spectacular gems have emerged. The Davistown Museum serves as more than just a repository of historical and cultural artifacts. Sometimes Brack rewrites history, or at least corrects some long-held notions.

Until recently, it has been widely accepted that plane maker Francis Nicholson (1683-1753) was the first American toolmaker to identify his work with his name. Then along came a little gem, a six-fold wantage rod (used for measuring the depth of wines or ales in barrels) dated and signed in script "Made by Robert Merchant for Noah Emery, Berwick, 1720." It came from longtime museum patron Bob Wheeler. "He got it out of Eliot, Maine," Brack said. "It's probably one of the most important tools in the country. And it's the earliest signed and dated tool we have been able to locate in any museum."

According to information available on the Web site, Emery was the earliest resident lawyer in Maine. He began the practice of law in 1725 and was several times between 1741 and 1759 appointed king's attorney. In addition to lawyering, he carried on a trade as a cooper. He died in 1762.

Information on Robert Merchant, the toolmaker, simply isn't available anywhere else but here. Brack wrote, "That such a rulemaker lived and produced rules in Maine is verified by the fact that we have a signed rule made by him." It's a beautifully crafted piece, 10 1/4<146> long when folded, complete with a box into which it fits so tightly that a ribbon is needed to remove it.

As for the long-cherished notion that Nicholson was the first tool signer, that may now be history too. Brack has come up with the names of at least two New England toolmakers, Ebenezer Seymour and Nathaniel Potter, who signed their work, and they may predate Nicholson by several years. "So there's a controversy about that," Brack admitted. "About the same period but maybe five or eight years earlier. But hardly anybody signed any tools before that date, just because I guess they just didn't do that."

When discussing the demise of the original location of the Jonesport Wood Company, a sad note rings in Brack's voice. "I had a bad septic system, and a bad school system, and conflicts with the fire department, and I moved to Bar Harbor in 1983...So it's still the Jonesport Wood Company. But we closed up there [in Jonesport], and they bulldozed the building just recently. It was a very important historic building, but they couldn't figure out how to deal with the septic, and they just bulldozed it. It was a tragedy. This is the story of Maine and the world. The whole history of West Jonesport has been lost."

The museum Web site covers all the areas of the mission statement and includes hundreds of pages on environmental issues such as climate change, chemical pollutants, nuclear power, ozone depletion, acid rain, and more. "For twenty-five years, I did biological monitoring...and I had an interest in toxic substances...We're the largest information site on radioisotopes in the environment and how they behave...and we have the only database on Chernobyl."

Now pushing 60 years old, Brack is hinting that he may be slowing down a bit. The rich legacy of archaeological, historical, and environmental lore he built is monumental, but if all you need is an old but usable something-or-other, try Liberty Tool Company.

For more information, call (207) 589-4900 or visit the museum's Web site (www.davistownmuseum.org). Brack's Web site for the Jonesport Wood Company (www.jonesport-wood.com) has links to all of his businesses.