Included in the many priceless Lititz items displayed at The Lititz Historical Foundation are two beautiful, inlaid-wood grandfather clocks made by Lititz native Rudolph S. Carpenter. A stone mason by trade, Mr. Carpenter spent most of his free time in a workshop behind his home at 131 N. Cedar Street. His passion was inlaid wood furniture.
He made clocks, chests and tables using more than twenty different kinds of hard wood. Local oak, chestnut, walnut, holly, cherry, and maple were used as well as wood shipped to his workshop from a woodcutter in Germany. His main tool was a simple scroll saw. With his saw he cut as many as 50,000 pieces of wood, in small, intricate, symmetrical shapes to coincide with the finished design he had planned.
