Cesar Chelor (c1720-1784), a skilled African American plane maker, made this plane in about 1770. Hand planes are an essential tool for woodworkers to smooth wood or to create finished or decorative wood edges called moldings. The metal plane blade is specially shaped to make a particular cut when the woodworker runs the plane along the wood. This is a thumbnail molding plane, used to create small, rounded wood edges.

Cesar Chelor was enslaved to Francis Nicholson of Wrentham, Massachusetts. Nicholson is the earliest known plane maker in America; Chelor is the earliest known African American tool maker in America. When Nicholson died in 1753, he emancipated Chelor and left him property in his will:  “As to my Negroman Caesar Chelo considering his faithful service, his tender care, & kind & Christian carriage I do set him free to act for himself in the world & I do will and bequeath unto him his bed and beding, his shift and clothing, his bench & common bench tools, a set of chisels, one vice, one sithe & tackling & ten acres of land to be set of to him at the end of my woodland. . .& on third bart of my timber.” (The timber being dried wood ready to be used.) After gaining his freedom, Chelor stamped his own name on the planes he created, such as the one shown here. In 1758, Cesar married Judith Russell. The couple had nine children and were part of a larger African American community living in Wrentham. Cesar Chelor died in 1784. Today, there is a “Cesar Chelor Drive” in Wrentham and his planes are highly valued by historians and collectors.