Marshall Scheetz started practicing the cooper's trade in 2002. He completed a six-year apprenticeship under a traditionally-trained master cooper. Scheetz practices tight, dry, and white coopering and creates accurate reproductions of period cooperage including hogsheads, barrels, firkins, butter churns, tubs, piggins, tankards and other coopered containers.
Scheetz is an independent scholar researching and documenting the culture and economy of coopers from the 18th and 19th centuries. He collaborates with museums and educational institutions to promote understanding of coopering and coopered containers.
Presentations/Demonstrations/Training
Selected Collections
Personal work is on display or is in use at the following museums:
Grants
Consultant
Profiled
Scheetz is an independent scholar researching and documenting the culture and economy of coopers from the 18th and 19th centuries. He collaborates with museums and educational institutions to promote understanding of coopering and coopered containers.
Presentations/Demonstrations/Training
- Demonstration, Fort McHenry National Monument, Defenders Return to the Fort, Baltimore, MD, 2017
- Staff Training, Fort William Historical Park, Thunderbay, Ontario, 2017
- Demonstration, Newlin Gristmill, Glenn Mills, Pennsylvania, 2016-2017
- Staff Training, Frontier Culture Museum, Staunton, VA 2017
- Demonstration, Saratoga National Historical Park, 18th Century Day/Military Trades Day, Saratoga Springs, NY, 2016-2017
- Demonstration, Speaker, From Hogsheads to Tobacco Baskets, the Heritage of Farm to Market Tobacco Culture and Traditions in Southern Maryland, Symposium, Benedict, MD, 2016
- Demonstration, Frontier Culture Museum: Frontier Folkways Festival, Staunton, VA, 2015
- Lecture, Museum of English Rural Life: A Sense of Place, Reading, UK, 2014
- Demonstration, American Philosophical Society Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2011
- Presentation, Nantucket Historical Association, Massachusetts, 2009, 2010
- Demonstration, Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, 2009
- Demonstration, New Bedford Whaling Museum, Massachusetts 2009
- Demonstration, Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens: annual participation Colonial Days, Mount Vernon, Virginia, 2003-present
- Exhibitor, Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens: annual participation 18th-Century Craft Fair, Juried Show, Mount Vernon, Virginia, 2006-2008
- Exhibitor, Symposium on American Social History and Material Culture: All Manner of Useful Goods, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, 2008
- Demonstration, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello: Plantation Community Weekend, 2008
- Demonstration, Smithsonian Folk Life Festival: Virginia Roots Washington DC, National Mall, 2007
- Demonstration, Macy’s Petacular, New York, New York, 2007
- Demonstration, Godspeed Sails 400th Anniversary of the Founding of Jamestown, Virginia, New York, New York, 2006
- Demonstration, Siege of Yorktown, 225th Anniversary Celebration, Yorktown, Virginia, 2006
- Demonstration, 67th annual National Folk Festival: Richmond, Virginia, 2005
Selected Collections
Personal work is on display or is in use at the following museums:
- The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia
- Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, Charlottesville, Virginia
- Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, Mount Vernon, Virginia
- Nantucket Whaling Museum, Massachusetts
- Museum of the American Revolution, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, Baltimore, Maryland
- Saratoga National Historical Park, Stillwater, New York
- Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown, Virginia
- Historic St. Mary’s City, St. Mary’s City, Maryland
- Old Salem Museums and Gardens, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
- The Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia, Staunton, Virginia
- Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia
- Mackinac State Historic Parks, Mackinaw City, Michigan
- Historic Annapolis, Annapolis, Maryland
- American History Workshop, Brooklyn, New York
- Charleston’s Gun Powder Magazine, Charleston, South Carolina
- Claude Moore Colonial Farm at Turkey Run, McLean, Virginia
- Frying Pan Farm Park, Herndon, Virginia
- Tudor Place Historic House and Garden, Washington DC
- Carillon Historical Park, Dayton, Ohio
- Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Schiele Museum, Gastonia, North Carolina
- Deltaville Maritime Museum, Deltaville, Virginia
- Sully Historic Site, Chantilly, Virginia
- James Madison’s Montpelier, Montpelier Station, Virginia
- Freedom Park, Williamsburg, Virginia
- Garibaldi Museum, Garibaldi, Oregon
- Connor Prairie Living History Museum, Fishers, Indiana
Grants
- American Craft Council 2016 Conference Scholarship, Present Tense, Omaha, Nebraska, 2016
- The Mary and Donald Field Experience Fund, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Gunpowder in England, Research Trip to the British National Archives to examine 18th century British Board of Ordnance Records, 2014
- Winthrop L. Carter Memorial Award, Early American Industries Association, Degrees of Separation: 18th and 19th Century Coopers from rural Virginia and maritime New England, 2009
- "History of Hog Island Sheep" funded by The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, Gunston Hall Plantation and The Accokeek Foundation, 2002
- "History of Sheep at Mount Pleasant," The Mount Pleasant Restoration Project, 2004
Consultant
- George Washington's Mount Vernon, Conservation/Curatorial, Mount Vernon, Virginia, 2016
- Island Farm, Outer Banks Conservationists, Inc., Manteo, North Carolina, 2010
- Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, 2009
- Shagena, Jack L., An Illustrated History of the Barrel in America, Bel Air, Maryland, 2006
- Queen Anne’s Revenge Shipwreck Project, Underwater Archaeology Branch, 2006
- Twede, Diana, The Cask Age: The Technology and History of Wooden Barrels, Packaging Technology and Science, 2005; 18; 253-264.
Profiled
- Schulman, Michael, A Cooper’s Tale, The New Yorker, August 21, 2006
- whitehead, Jason and Scheetz, Marshall, A Convict Servant, a Slave, and Indentured Servant: Three Building Tradesmen at Mount Vernon, Interpreter; Colonial Williamsburg, Vol. 26, No. 3, Winter 2005/2006
- Crews, Ed, Rare Sheep, Colonial Williamsburg Magazine, Spring 2007
- Crews, Ed, Making Circles, Colonial Williamsburg Magazine, Summer 2003
- Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Podcast Interview on Coopering, July 18, 2005
- Queen Anne’s Revenge Shipwreck Project, Laboratory Report, Spring 2006
- Shagena, Jack L., An Illustrated History of the Barrel in America, Bel Air, Maryland, 2006
- Early American Industries Association
- American Craft Council