maintained in the condition in which they
were found peeling varnish, frayed rope
and all to preserve their historical value.
Even though it shows its age, there's
beauty in the details of this 1919 pulling
boat by Thomas Fleming Day.
(Penobscot Marine Museum)
16-foot captain's gig built in 1881 by a
carpenter aboard the Downeaster sailing
ship Cora for young Charles Coombs,
the son of the ship's captain, Robert H.
Coombs of Belfast. Capt. Coombs had
Little Elva
added his own elaborate woodcarvings.
Although modeled after a working boat,
the fancy little lady was used for plea-
sure outings by the Coombs family.
continuum is an unnamed smelt scow
built in Winterport in 1923. Nearly 31
feet long and rectangular in plan view,
she was heavily built of thick pine
planking over massive hackmatack
(larch) knees. Pure functionality was
her assignment, and aesthetics played
no role in her design or construction.
Propelled by sculling with a single huge
oar over the stern, she was used to set
and retrieve nets in the Penobscot River
during the smelts' late-winter or early-
spring migration.
birchbark canoes. Maine's Wabanaki
people had been building these elegant,
lightweight craft for centuries when, in
the late 19th century, wealthy tourists
from the big cities in the East began
coming here to hunt and fish. Their
trips through Maine's North Woods
were often made in Wabanaki-built
birchbark canoes. Sensing an opportu-
nity, "white" boatbuilders in Maine
modified the Indian canoe to create the
and these were built by names such as
Gerrish, Morris, White and, of course,
Old Town all of which are represented
in the museum's collection. Meanwhile,
the skills for building birchbark canoes
withered and, by the middle of the 20th
century, the knowledge was virtually
extinct among the Wabanaki.
now runs an education program in
which young Wabanaki men from
Maine and New Brunswick spend two
weeks on the campus, working with a
master builder to learn the skills and
reestablish birchbark canoe building
as a part of their culture. Although the
canoes built in the program are dis-
played temporarily, they don't enter
the museum's permanent collection.
Instead, they are sold or raffled to raise
funds for the program. (At the time of this
writing, a superb 16-footer is available.)
rowing skiff to a 33-foot Oldsmobile-
powered lobsterboat, the boat collection
at Penobscot Marine Museum highlights
the creativity of Maine's maritime
culture and illuminates its contribution
to the world's maritime heritage. It's a
must-see for any fan of boats and the sea.
Marine Museum at 207-548-2529 or
www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
at Penobscot Marine Museum.
Coombs, decorated
(Penobscot Marine Museum)
display at Penobscot Marine Museum in
Searsport.
used for lobstering on the Maine coast.
Leon Young of Matinicus built this
lapstrake version in 1925.
(Penobscot Marine Museum)
often in the media for its new exhibits and
for the conferences, classes and presenta-
tions it offers year-round. What doesn't
often make the news are its permanent
collections the things that are always
there, whether on display or in storage.
With some 50 boats on view, it's one of the largest displays of historic small craft in
New England. And not just any old small craft: from canoes built by Old Town to a
sailboat once owned by Charlotte's Web author E.B. White, every one of the boats
on display has a Maine connection.
and-canvas canoe was invented in Maine by builders like Gerrish and Morris in the
late 19th century, canoeing became a nationwide craze, and the cedar-and-canvas
canoe remained the most common type for almost 100 years. The Maine double-
ender or "peapod" --of which Penobscot Marine Museum has several examples--
is renowned by traditional boat fans everywhere for its toughness, its handy
maneuverability, and its good rowing characteristics. Likewise with many of the
other craft on display their Maine pedigree is a point of added interest to boats
that are historically significant in their own right.
the boats are displayed pretty much as they were found, peeling paint, rusted fasten-
ings and all. This is intentional, says the museum's curator, Ben Fuller. "The boats
are three-dimensional historical documents" he says. "We can learn a lot about how
they were built, how they were used and how they were maintained by keeping them
as we found them and studying them when a research question needs an answer. If
we restored them, some of that history would be lost forever."