The first Aylor chair
Albert Aylor (1832-1922) was a woodworker from Madison County, Virginia, who was captured at the Battle of the Bloody Angle in May 1864. Imprisoned at Fort Delaware, he made a chair for his daughter, and this became a prototype for a Madison County industry; while pondering his little girl’s chair, I made a Petrarchan Sonnet.
Aylor, captured at the Bloody Angle,
Pondered how he the folks back home could please,
Cause them to recall how he can wrangle
Furniture shapes emerging from felled trees.
This night, when the carpentry shop empties,
The woodwright wields filched tools familiar
And find the forms—rails, posts, lasts—which he frees,
Imprisoned with his men at Delaware.
The Sergeant sees his little lass will sit
Beside the burning hearth, her legs to warm
In this choice chair, after a winter’s roam.
He sees how he, once free, new life will knit,
From ingenuity, and so he’ll form
Some hope within this chair, which sends him home.
