It was named “America’s Sport.”
The game of Baseball grew as America did. The sport was much like the freshly formulated country; it was for both the rich and poor.
Young immigrants took to it in the streets of New York and the open fields of Nebraska, dreaming to be their newfound heroes.

One of those early American settlers was “Bud” Hillerich. In 1880, at 14, he’d begin to learn his father, Johann Fredrich Hillerich trade by serving as an apprentice in his woodworking shop.


His father went mostly by J.F. Hillerich, and was a German born citizen, looking for a fresh start in America. He was proud of his young boy, and let him work on side projects in his shop.

At 18, Bud went to work on a baseball bat for the company’s first professional ballplayer, Pete Browning, who played for the Louisville Eclipse. Browning nicknamed the bat “The Louisville Slugger.”

The popularity grew, orders started coming in all over the country.
Johann changed the woodshops name to “J.F. Hillerich & Son.”
“The Louisville Slugger,” baseball’s premier bat, was born.


From Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, to today’s stars, “The Louisville Slugger” remains the prized possession of the best hitters in Baseball.

What does this have to do with Manchester Wood and our furniture?
We use the same sturdy, long lasting White Ash in our furniture as they’ve used all these years on their bats.


White ash is considered the “premiere species” of North American ashes, for being hard, strong, exceeding bending qualities, and easily worked in our mill.

“The Louisville Slugger,” web site states, “Pound per pound, ash is the strongest timber available. Ash has a flexibility that isn’t found in other timbers like maple. It tends to flex rather than break, which gives a strong ‘sweet spot’ in terms of breakage. Ash is lighter than maple, giving a wider range of large barrel models.”

Although we don’t use our durable, long-last White Ash for home runs at the ballpark, we do on our indoor items, giving customers products lasting for generations at a fair price.

Know What Type of Furniture You Are Buying

Have you ever wondered what the actual material used in that piece of furniture you were considering buying? It is very important to see beyond the picture you see in deciding if the quality and construction is worth your investing in the item for your home. Even though the item may look like it is “solid hardwood”, when you take a closer look and investigate what material is actually used you may be surprised to find out what it really is.

Many low cost products are made with artificial laminates. The laminates are made with a substrate such as particleboard or a medium density fiberboard (MDF), and then covered with a thin imitation wood grain layer made out of vinyl, foil, or paper. The substrate is made from wood chips, small pieces of cardboard or paper, and then pressed with glues to hold it together. These items are initially okay to “look” at but if you go to move them they usually break apart and wind up in the trash hopper. Once the hardware pulls out of the holes they cannot be reattached because the material is “ripped and torn” apart. They are the “lowest quality”.

The next type of construction is with veneers. Veneers are thin slices of wood that are usually bonded to particleboard or MDF. They give the appearance of a solid piece of wood but because of the thin layer, they often “chip” off to the under layer particleboard or MDF. Hardwood veneers can also be bonded to solid wood or plywood. This construction gives you the “look” but doesn’t hold up as well as true solid wood.

Solid wood is the best quality that you can find for your furniture. The wood is sawed directly from the tree into boards and kilned dried to a proper moisture content. It can then be cut and ripped to specific sizes. It may also be edged-glued together to make wider boards. The glue lines of these panels are actually stronger than the wood grain itself. This is the type of furniture that Manchester Wood has been producing for over thirty years now. Our furniture can last for generations. It can easily be repaired because it is “solid” with no cheaper substrate in the center of the part.
The products you will find on our website are all made from solid white ash or soft maple hardwood that is carefully harvested from surrounding forests in the northeastern part of the United States.

Our solid hardwood products are available at our Manchester, Vermont Store (4357 Main St) and our Granville, New York Factory Outlet (1159 County Route 24). You may also order online from our website: ManchesterWood.com.

To learn more about our American hardwoods, please go to the Hardwood Manufacturers Association website at http://www.hardwoodinfo.com/.

New 2009 Contempory Wood Furniture Collection

It’s 2009 and we’re starting off the New Year by adding a new collection of wood furniture to our ever-expanding catalog. Our Contemporary Collection features round, oval, square and rectangular shapes with sleek and sophisticate designs to complement your existing room settings. Currently, this collection includes 2 coffee tables and 3 end tables. They are all made in the USA from solid Ash hardwood. Unlike cheap wood furniture imports from overseas, the Contemporary pieces offer great quality at a fair price. They are available with a Golden Oak or Chestnut Finish. If you’d like to finish or paint a piece yourself, we also offer unfinished wood as an option.

Our Contemporary Collection is available at our Manchester, Vermont Store (4357 Main St) and our Granville, New York Factory Outlet (1159 County Route 24). You may also order online from our website: ManchesterWood.com

In related news, we’ve also been working on a new collection of wood media stands for flat screen TVs. The stands will also be made from solid Ash hardwood and will be available in a variety of finishes. They’re not quite ready yet, but we’re eager to begin production as soon as everything is set to go! We’ll update you once we begin production and when we have some finished pieces will get some pictures up on the blog too.

New Yorker Interview - Black Market Timber

An article in the October 6th issue of the New Yorker by Raffi Khatchadourian caught our eye recently as it discusses a problem that is very relevant to our business: timber smuggling. Although timber smuggling is not a headline grabbing occurrence, it is a very widespread issue with the majority of illegally harvested and traded timber ends up in Western markets such as the U.S. or Europe. Many of the illegal logs that end up in the U.S. originate in Russia or China, where unscrupulous loggers and timber traders illegally harvest valuable (and often protected) hardwood species. These operatives do not care about the long term sustainability and health of the forests that they exploit (see above picture from the FSC), the bottom line is all that matters. In this sense, illegal timber is clearly not environmentally friendly.

How can you know for sure your wood desk, coffee table, or other wooden furniture is made from legally harvested wood? It's tough. Wood is such a ubiquitous materials that people often fail to consider where it originates from. Progress is being made, however. Organizations such as the Sustainable Forest Initiative and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) have developed labeling systems that make it easier to track chain of custody from the forest to the final product. Currently, this is the only reliable way that consumers have of being sure that their wood furniture comes from legal timber.

At Manchester Wood, we take timber smuggling and environmental sustainability seriously. We can guarantee that all of our wood home and office furniture is constructed out of legal, "green" timber. We ensure these standards by only buying American-grown timber. Stringent regulation in the U.S. means that American timber is harvested in accordance with the law. By eschewing international timber we are able to focus on building quality furniture without having to worry about the legality of our materials. Furthermore, we only buy timber that has been certified as eco friendly by the SFI. As product labeling and chain of custody tracking becomes more widespread, we hope to see timber smuggling and illegal harvesting decrease. Until that day, we work to ensure that all the timber we use is legally harvested from sustainable forests.

Video Narrated by Raffi Khatchadourian

Audo Interview with Raffi Khatchadourian