
CP and LB Prindle
Possibly; Cyrus Prindle (father)
1760-1811, Newtown, CT, jointer / carpenter
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Likely; Lewis Beers Prindle (son)
1783-1850, Newtown, CT, cabinet maker / wagon maker
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(LBPrindle) in GAWP5 and a set of 6 planes (CP and LBPrindle) reported by Jake Brillhart on the Facebook group Rhykenology. Thank you's to Jake and Will Steere for their efforts in finding the identities of Cyrus and Lewis.

CP and LB Prindle, the craftsmen.
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Cyrus Prindle (1760-1811) Newtown, CT moved to Canaan and then Bedford, New York. Cyrus's father Joseph was a jointer / carpenter. Cyrus's son Charles W. born in 1799 was a shoemaker.
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Cyrus, the father of Lewis, was a carpenter / jointer based on research done by Edward Cooke and published in Making Furniture in Preindustrial America, appendix A, pg 213.
"Cyrus Prindle was the son of Joseph, brother of Lazarus, and father of Lewis. Among his documented products and services are chests, coffins, bedsteads, doors, and sashes, and putting up mantlepieces, helving axes, and bottoming chairs.
SOURCES: NTL; Account Book of Caleb Baldwin of Newtown, 1800-1846; Newtown Town Book, 1802-12; Account Book of Anonymous Dyer/Fuller of Newtown, 1802-1808 (privately owned); Account Book of Ziba Blakeslee of Newtown, 1789-1822 (Winterthur Museum Library)."
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Lewis Beers Prindle (1783-1850) Newtown, CT. He was the oldest son of Cyrus and Betsey.
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Lewis's biography was included in Commemorative Biographical Record of Fairfield County, CT pg 429. Lewis was ... "engaged in business there as a cabinet and wagon maker. Removing to the site of Johnson's mill, he there for sometime conducted a gristmill and wagon shop ..."
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Lewis's trade was also recorded in Cook's book on Furniture, pg 213; "Cyrus Prindle's son, Lewis, operated his own joiner's shop in the middle of town beginning in 1804. His tasks ranged from repair work and ax helving to gun stocking and furniture
production .
SOURCES: NTL; NLR; HC; Account Book of Caleb Baldwin of Newtown, 1800-1846; Account Book of Samuel Beers of Newtown, 1794-1815 (privately owned); Account Book of Philo Beardslee of Newtown, 1804-1833 (Litchfield Historical Society)."
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Jake provided information on Lewis B's comb making patent from 1829.

CP and LB Prindle, the planes.
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Jake reported 6 molding planes found together in Rutland, VT, all imprinted LB Prindle (sides and several on the toe and / or heel) and two imprinted CP in a zz border on the upper toe. Planes on the left are birch while the planes on the right are beech.

The photo with six planes tells alot of the story; the upper two 10" long molders are marked CP and LBPrindle, while the lower four are shorter and are marked LBPrindle. These four also have later styled wedges and importantly, the wedge profiles on the two lower right birch planes are different than the wedge profiles on the two lower left beech planes. The lower planes on the left are 9 1/2" long and the lower planes on the right are 9 3/4" long. (The upper right molder is better shown in the photo that follows.)
With the imprint patterns, wedge observations and plane lengths, the author proposes that (at this early point in the investigation) that there is a good possibility that CP made the two molders with his imprint while there is a question as to whether LB was the maker of the planes with his imprint alone. Note that LB could have certainly made some of them. That having been said, LB marked planes (his imprint alone) were made by at least three different hands ... if not more, counting the two later styles above and the planes referenced in GAWP5.
Two 10" molders marked CP and LBPrindle with pointed finials on the wedges.


This birch molder has a smaller final than the preceding plane, but the finials are similar in their design. The chamfer stop details are significantly different; a step with a flat tapered cut instead of a step with a simple turn out. This tapered cut is often earlier than the turn out detail when craftsmen have been documented as having used both chamfer stop styles in their career.


8" molder marked LBPrindle (on the reverse side and possibly on the toe??) with a "pointed" finial on the wedge. The chamfer stop details follow the style found on the first 10" plane.


The three pointed finials presented at a common scale.



LBPrindle (only) molders show a variety of wedge and chamfer stop styles; i.e., these examples and those covered in GAWP5 were probably made by different hands. Perhaps some were made by LB and likely that some (most) were not. It is not known if the planes in GAWP5 also had the CP imprint, noting that a least one of them did not have a pointed wedge finial.
9 1/2" long, birch.


9 3/4" long, beech.
