Richard M. Field

Richard Montgomery Field was born July 8, 1775. He is the younger brother of Joseph Fuller Jr., born Joseph Field. (l) Richard M. Field learned his toolmaking as an apprentice to Joseph Fuller. (2) Field would have completed his apprenticeship to Fuller by 1796 and he may have continued to work for several years in the Fuller shop as a journeyman planemaker. Sometime after April 1798 Field formed a partnership with his brother Joseph Fuller Jr. and they made the woodworking planes that are stamped "FULLER & FIELD." The April 1798 date is significant because that is when the "Joseph Fuller & Son" copartnership ended. (3) A plausible explanation as to why the copartnership ended is that the two brothers, ages 25 and 22, decided by April, 1798 to establish their own toolmaking business. The partnership between Joseph Fuller Jr. and Richard M. Field lasted perhaps six or seven years. There was also a short-lived partnership between Field and Daniel Arnold. Judging by the number of "ARNOLD & FIELD" planes that survive today, this partnership could not have lasted more than a year. Richard M. Field also worked on his own as a toolmaker, stamping his planes with the imprint "RICH'd. M. FIELD" encased in a scalloped border. (4)

All of Richard M. Field's toolmaking took place in Providence, but the location of his workshop is unknown. It may have been in the house on Friendship St. that the two brothers jointly owned. The house was built after they purchased the land in 1799.(5). Field could not have had an easy time of it working as a toolmaker in Providence in the first decade of the nineteenth century. His competition was Joseph Fuller and John Lindenberger. Toolmaking was Field's trade and he practiced it with some success. But it is doubtful he was ever able to earn a steady income from toolmaking,. He went to sea for six months in 1799 and he may have returned to the sea several times. He most likely took on other kinds of work in addition to his toolmaking. Field is described as a "toolmaker" in a 1799 land deed. In 1813, in another land deed, he is called a "mariner." By 1815, now 40 years old, he has entered the world of commerce and trade in Providence. He is listed as a "merchant" in 1816, and as "Richard M. Field, Esquire" in 1819. By 1824, he is a partner in the firm of "Field and Bosworth", lumber merchants. He was also active in civic affairs. In 1828, he became a "city hall officer." In 1832, when Providence was incorporated as a city, Field became the first City Clerk, a position he held until his death in 1843.(6)

The evidence of the surviving tools that Richard M. Field made, working both on his own and in partnership with others, is that he was a first-rate mechanic. We have seen four planes that have the "RICH'd. M. FIELD" imprint. His planes are ten inches long, made of birch, have flat chamfers, fluting below the chamfer stops, and a relieved wedge. They are identical in every respect to the woodworking planes made by Joseph Fuller during the 1790's. Whether working in partnership with his brother as Fuller & Field, with Daniel Arnold as Arnold & Field, or by himself as Richard M. Field, he remained firmly rooted in the planemaking culture that emanated from the
workshop of Joseph Fuller.

2. Field could have learned the toolmaking trade from his brother, Joseph Fuller Jr., after April 1798 when the "Joseph Fuller & Son" copartnership ended. But it is unlikely that Field would be learning a new trade at the age of 22. The May 1799 land deed in which the brothers are called "Tool-Makers" and the fact that both names are on the planemakers stamp, "FULLER & FIELD", suggest a partnership between equals. Equal in the sense that Richard M. Field, like his brother, learned the toolmaking trade from Joseph Fuller, beginning his apprenticeship around 1789.

3. The end of the copartnership was announced in the Providence Gazette, April 18, 1798. Anne and Donald Wing found this notice and reproduced it in their article on Joseph Fuller in "Plane Talk", Vol. 15, No. 3.

4. The number stamp imprints that are found on the heel of his planes provide a clue as to the chronological order of the partnerships entered into by Richard Field. The Fuller & Field number stamp imprints were made with one set of number stamps. A different set was used to stamp both the Richard M. Field and the Arnold & Field planes. When the Fuller & Field partnership ended, Joseph Fuller Jr. kept the number stamps. When Richard Field joined with his friend Daniel Arnold to form a new partnership, he had to find another set of number stamps.

5. The house on Friendship St. was in the same neighborhood where Joseph Fuller lived and worked. The two brothers purchased the land on which the house was built from their father, John Field. In 1817 Richard M. Field sold his half interest in the house and land, but his brother Joseph Fuller Jr. was still living there in 1832. (Land Deeds. Providence City Hall, Bk. 40, p.318; Bk. 40, p321.)

6. Land Deeds. Providence City Hall, toolmaker - Bk. 40, p318; mariner -Bk. 37, p206; merchant - Bk. 40, p46; esquire - Bk. 42, p450; Field & Bosworth - Bk. 52, p105. See also Providence City Directories, 1828 thru 1843.