The Millersville Area Historical Society (MAHS) invites the public to a presentation titled "Lancaster City Planemakers - the Heiss Family and E.W. Carpenter" on Saturday, Dec. 14, at 9 a.m. at the Millersville Borough Administration and Police Building, 100 Municipal Drive, Millersville. Doors will open at 8:30 a.m. and lock at 9:15 a.m.

The speaker will be Todd Hostetter, an expert in Lancaster County toolmaking from the pre-Revolutionary War period through the 1880s and a published historian on local craftspeople and their families. Hostetter's presentation will cover the history of early joiners, planemakers, coopers, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, and others in Lancaster County. Nearly every town had one or more of each of these people.

Hostetter's talk will unveil the work of joiners and planemakers in particular. A joiner bought dried rough lumber from a local sawmill or lumber merchant, straightened its edges and flattened the boards while a planemaker made tools and specialty planes and sold them to carpenters. From the late 1700s through the mid-1800s, two family planemaking shops were active in Lancaster city; they were run by the Heiss and Carpenter families. These two shops will be discussed by Hostetter before a closing question-and-answer period.

A collector of Lancaster County tools, Hostetter volunteers at Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum, where he catalogs the site's tool collection and has helped orchestrate some specialty tool exhibits. The Manheim Township resident, born and raised in the Hershey area, is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology. He administrates a Facebook group titled "1700's & 1800's Planemakers-Toolmakers of South-Central Pennsylvania" and a website called the E.W. Carpenter Project.

Although admission is free, donations will be accepted. For more details, contact Phil Gerber at 717-872-8837 before noon or at pge8507@aol.com.