sawpit

noun

1. A pit over which lumber is positioned to be sawn with a long two-handled saw (a pitsaw) by two people, one standing above the timber and the other in the pit below.

   “[V]pon a ſodaine, / As Falſtaffe, ſhe, and I, are newly met, / Let them [children dressed like "urchins, ouphes and fairies"] from forth a ſaw-pit ruſh at once / With ſome diffuſed ſong: Vpon their ſight / We two, in great amazedneſſe will flye: […]”

   “'Twas in a Saw-pit then: yet when the Armies meet (I'l ſay that for him) he will draw up as confidently, as if he would take a General by the Beard; and he will as confidently ride out of the Army before the Battel joyns: and if any man ask him whither he goes, he ſays he is ſent for Orders, ſo you hear of him no more; and the next day you find him as ſure in a Saw-pit.”

   “By the way, it is obſerved that the nature of the Soil here and there, is ſuch, ſo looſe, ſupple, rotten and ſandy, that meerly of itſelf, it is apt to ſink and fall in; as was lately experienced by a Saw-pit, digg'd hard by, which after a little time by the Earths giving way on each ſide of it, fell in, and fill'd up itſelf.”

   “[…] I was full two and forty Days making me a Board for a long Shelf, which I wanted in my Cave; whereas two Sawyers with their Tools, and a Saw-Pit, would have cut ſix of them out of the ſame Tree in half a Day.”

   “When master took Atkinson and Warren from the saw pit I was put to work there, but as I was a new hand I did not work well, and master used me very badly for it: it was the first time I ever held a saw; I was never given any regular task, but I did all I could to give satisfaction.”