Poe's Tavern, a pine log replica of Hamilton County's first courthouse and post office in Soddy-Daisy, is getting some new furniture.
Students at the Chattanooga Woodworking Academy at 1604 S. Market St. on Saturday delivered a handmade table constructed of 300-year-old heart pine wood to the Poe's Tavern replica building in Soddy-Daisy.
(READ MORE: Park to surround Poe's Tavern replica in Soddy-Daisy.)
Bill Carney, the director of the woodworking academy, said wood for the table was salvaged from the old Chattanooga Rescue Mission at the corner of Main and Market streets, which was torn down and relocated in 2012. The table is worth about $4,000 in labor and materials, he said.
"I had this one (heart pine) board I'd been saving all these years, that I thought would make a terrific table top," Carney said in an interview. "We hadn't made anything to go in Poe's Tavern, so we thought, 'Let's build something that would have been period specific.'"
Poe's Tavern was originally built in 1817, so Carney and his students studied furniture styles from the early 19th century to design the table. The fact it was made of pine would have categorized it as a tavern or kitchen table, Carney said. Hasten Poe, who built the tavern, was a wealthy 19th century landowner and would have had fancier furniture in his family's dinning room, Carney said.
The Poe's Tavern project was Carney's idea, and he built the log structure using yell0w-pine logs cut in Soddy-Daisy in 2011-12. Donors gave $50,000 to fund the construction, which Carney used in part as seed money for the Woodworking Academy, which serves as a vocational school for aspiring craftspeople.
Poe's Tavern was considered the cradle of Hamilton County. Poe and other original settlers petitioned the state to recognize a new county from land surrendered by the Cherokee.
Carney, who has taught woodworking in schools and owned his own furniture making company, said the academy uses a European apprentice model that prepares students to become furniture and cabinet makers.
"You start by sharpening a pocket knife and end up building a high-boy (chest of drawers)," he said.
(READ MORE: Chattanooga Woodworking academy hosts furniture show.)
Two students at the academy, Michael Clark and Brandon Lebanon, built the Poe's Tavern table together, a task that took about 24 work days days to complete, they said.
Clark went to Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis and spent a couple of years at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga before transitioning to the Woodworking Academy in 2019.
"I wanted to do something physical," he said in an interview.
Lebanon, who lives in Kentucky, commutes to Chattanooga two days a week to complete his woodworking studies.
"It was kind of whim," Lebanon said. "It's my second year, and I've enjoyed it."
Before the pandemic, the school had about 15 students, who pay tuition to attend. Now it has six, but hopes are high that the number of students will grow, Carney said.
Proceeds from the custom furniture made at the school goes to help support the operation, and students get some of the money, too.
"We want to teach the skills to build furniture and cabinets," Carney said. "I'm going to teach you how to make your living building any kind of furniture."
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