Willard Earl (alternatively, "Willard Earle", 1783-1851) was a sawmill operator who became one of the earliest confirmed makers of woodworking machinery. Earl received 1813 and 1822 patents for shingle machines. Earl licensed these patents to several other makers, and also manufactured them himself.

Earl was likely the first manufacturer of circular sawing machines in North America. In 1817 he saw some circular saw blades in a Boston hardware store; the merchant had ordered from England a few dozen "circular saws", by which he had meant keyhole saws. Earl recognized how the sawblades could be used, and purchased them. He apparently built one or more circular sawing machines for his own use and them undertook to manufacture them, beginning in about 1819. We speculate that Earl's 1813 shingle mill patent used a reciprocating saw, and the 1822 patent used a circular saw. Unfortunately, because he began manufacturing his circular-saw based design before he applied for a patent, the patent was subsequently invalidated.

Information Sources

• Earl's patents were lost in the 1836 patent office fire and so the information we have on them was reconstructed from other sources. See the "Patents" tab for more information.
• This patented shingle mill was mentioned in a 1965 paper prepared by the Department of Research at Old Sturbridge Village, New England Village Sawmills 1790-1840 by Barnes Riznik. "As early as the year 1821, and perhaps at an even earlier date, Willard Earle began the manufacture of his patented shingle machine at a small shop in Hubbardston, Massachusetts. In the 1830s, Earle's patented design was built by at least three other shops, in Henniker and Franklin, New Hampshire, and in Westminster, Vermont, where machine builders had purchased Earle's patent right." The references are given as Massachusetts Spy, August 15, 1821; Jonas Reed, A History of Rutland, Worcester County, Massachusetts (Worcester, 1836), p. 32; New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette, September 21, 1829, May 30, 1830; North Star, May 31, 1831; Brattleboro Messenger, April 10, 1829.
• The above-mentioned report from Old Sturbridge Village includes the following text among its references.

  Massachusetts Spy, August 15, 1821; Jonas Reed, A History of Rutland, Worcester County, Massachusetts (Worcester, 1836), p. 32; Pliny Earle, comp., The Earle Family: Ralph Earle and His Descendants (Worcester, 1888), p. 170; Received Patent for Shingle Machine September 3, 1813. Agents for Willard Earle included D. S. Handy, Eppa Cone and Lyman French of Westminster, Vermont, 1829; Perley How of Henniker, New Hampshire, 1829; John H. Durgin and Robert Smith of Franklin, N. H., 1830.

• We know that Earl actually manufactured shingle machines because of a lawsuit he filed against George Page of Keene, New Hampshire. George Page also figures prominently elsewhere in the early history of woodworking machinery: he invented the mortising machine that became the first product of the company that became J. A. Fay & Co.
  
  Earl filed a lawsuit against Page because Page had purchased a shingle machine from him, along with the right to operate the shingle mill in Keene. The shingle mill was of the design in Earl's 1822 patent. There were three payments, adding to $140, to cover the machine and rights. Page only paid the first instalment, and then claimed that Earl's patent was void because Earl manufactured the design as early as 1819, and he therefore should not have to pay for the right to use it. Earl sued him for the remaining two payments, such payments hinging on whether Earl had, in fact, exclusive patent rights to his design.
  
  The court found that Earl had relinquished rights to a patent by manufacturing the machine before applying for patent protection, and therefore the 1822 patent was void. Judgment was for the defendant.
• From Dictionary of Worcester (Massachusetts) and its vicinity, 1893, by Franklin P. Rice:

  In a paper on the manufacture of lumber, by Ellery B. Crane, printed in the Proceedings of the Worcester Society of Antiquity for 1884 (in Vol. VI. of the collections), we find the following: "It is claimed that Worcester County is the locality in this country in which lumber was first manufactured from the log with the circular saw; and there are various stories as to who set the first one in motion in this vicinity. Mr. Lewis Brown is reported as having operated the first one at the old Red Mill, which stood near the spot now occupied by the Crompton Loom Works. It is also claimed that a Mr. Flagg was the pioneer; but from the best information at hand, I think the credit should be given to Willard Earle, a native of Hubbardston. Mr. Earle was an enterprising and ingenious man, and early engaged in the manufacture of lumber. While thus employed, about the year 1817, he visited Boston, on business, and going into Mr. Thomas Holt's hardware store in Dock square, his eye fell upon a package of circular saws, which for some time past had been an object of curiosity—an unexplained marvel. Mr. Earle's keen, perceptive eye enabled him to unravel the mystery. He listened to Mr. Holt's story, how some time before he had sent to England 'an order for hardware, among the rest a few dozen circular saws, meaning keyhole or fret saws, to cost about five pounds sterling; and on receiving the goods how astonished he was at finding these round saws, which no mortal man knew the use of, and which had cost him so much money. Mr. Earle purchased the saws for a small sum and took them to Hubbardston, where he used them in sawing lumber. Previous to 1830, he constructed a machine, for which he took out a patent, using one of these saws for cutting shingles."

• It is widely reported that a spinner at the Harvard Shaker community, Sister Tabitha Babbitt, made a circular saw blade in 1813. Her saw blade was made of tin and was mounted on a sewing machine, but she apparently had in mind its use for a sawmill. We do not know when the Shakers actually built a circular sawmill, but it is quite possible that their use preceded that of Willard Earl.
• From the book, The Elijah Adams Family of Hubbardston, Mass., by Nelson Adams, 1910: "... still another sister, Rhoda Adams, married Willard Earle, of Worcester, where we often went to visit, and I remember his wonderful garden with its fine trellises, so unlike anything I had seen before. In a Thomas almanac of 1847 I found mention of an agricultural hearing in Boston, where Mr. Earle was called as an authority on horticulture and spoke on pruning and grafting."