The second wall of the drying shed gets lifted by 50 Colonial Williamsburg employees. Madison Peek/staff (Madison Peek)

WILLIAMSBURG — Carpenters, blacksmiths, cabinet makers and people of all trades banded together to raise new walls for a brick drying shed in Colonial Williamsburg.

The collaboration marked six months of work to create the two frames, each weighing 1,500 pounds. On Tuesday, at the newly named Carpenter’s and Brick Yard, it took 50 people to lift each side of the 32-foot wall, raising it in a traditional and authentic way but adhering to 21st-century safety codes.

“The idea of a barn raising, people see the barn go up in a day but there are months of work that lead up to that. And that’s really where we are right now,” said Ted Boscana, director of historic trades at Colonial Williamsburg. “So this is a culmination of probably six months of work between material production and cutting and fitting the joints for the frame.”

Mary Lawrence Herbert, an apprentice carpenter at Colonial Williamsburg, joined the project about halfway through but jumped right in, helping shape the wood pieces together to make the structure. All the lumbering and chiseling to get the wood to fit is done on-site at the Carpenter’s and Brick Yard, located at Botetourt and Nicholson streets. Carpenters use wood that is local to Virginia, Herbert said.

Colonial Williamsburg journeyman carpenter Ayinde Martin was one of the Colonial Williamsburg interpreters and tradespeople who helped with the shed frame. Madison Peek/staff (Madison Peek)

The structure was made out of 12 posts, cut by a hand saw using a sawyer and a pitman — a lumbering team that moves the saw up and down to cut the large pieces of wood. The lumbering process is done as it would have been during colonial times, Herbert said.

“Lumbering and the sawyer and the pitman parts were) usually done by enslaved individuals,” Herbert said. “We talk about ‘what’s it mean to be an enslaved person in the 18th century?’”

It’s a hard truth many don’t want to hear, like the fact women also worked in the carpentry industry, as well as many other fields, Herbert said. The work of constructing the shed was long and laborious.

Herbert, one of the many who helped lift the wall — she did it fully outfitted in stays and a long dress — got to see the project come to fruition after working on it for several weeks. She said the hard work helped improve her core strength to push up the wall.

Colonial Williamsburg apprentice carpenter Mary Lawrence Herbert holds a saw, similar to one used to cut the drying shed wooden frame. Madison Peek/staff (Madison Peek)

The finished drying shed will be able to house 20,000 bricks, Boscana said. The bricks that are made out of clay and water will be laid out in the drying shed for five to seven weeks before being piled into a kiln shape and heated to 1,800 to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit for a week. Then, they go on to live the rest of their lives as part of Colonial Williamsburg restoration projects.

“This brickyard was here on this location, up until ... I guess it’s been almost 20 years ago. It’s coming back to where it was for many years,” Boscana said. “Brickmaking is central to the restoration of our town that is ongoing, and that brickyard will be essential for many of the projects that we’re looking forward to working on over the next few years.”

Madison Peek, madison.peek@virginiamedia.com