Doing More Research on my 1942 16' Carleton by Old Town

[HEBlumer]

Benson Gray identified my canoe as a Carleton and provided a shipping record indicating it was sent to Peoria IL on June 19, 1942.. It also shows that the canoe was mostly built in 1938 but much of the finishing was done in April of 1942. I am looking at an internet document provided by Dragonfly Canoe Works, an identification guide which shows the production of the Carleton canoe model by Old Town only thru 1941... My question is when was the last year of production of the wood/canvas Carleton by the Old Town Company. If it was 1941, then what I have is probably a closeout model at the very end of its production.. That could explain some manufacturing quality issues I have found in the canoe... My serial number was 204341... am wondering how many numbers or units were produced after this unit. Are the answers to these questions available? Harold

 

[Benson Gray]

The highest known Carleton serial number is 20545 which came off the form on May 24th, 1943 and shipped on July 13th, 1943 so there were over two hundred more canoes produced after yours with number 20434. Carleton issued their last catalogs in 1941 and the chart at http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/carleton/carleton_chart.html shows that many canoes were made after that. I suspect that the manufacturing quality issues that you have found are probably due more to the limitations imposed by the Second World War than anything related to the end of the Carleton production. The Carleton Canoe Company as a separate financial entity ceased to exist in 1934 when it was merged into the Old Town Canoe Company to save money as a result of the Great Depression. Please feel free to reply here if this doesn't answer your questions.

Benson

 

[Dan Miller]

Old Town kept very good records of the canoes it produced, including those built under the Carleton brand since OT acquired Carleton in 1910. It looks like the highest serial number assigned to a Carleton is 20538. This would be among a handful of canoes shipped under the Carleton name in 1942-1943, several of which went to the US war effort. There may have been more "Old Town Carletons" shipped with serial numbers higher than this. Old Town wasn't building canoes to appease future historians, simply trying to stay lucrative, which they have managed to do in the face of many challenges to the boatbuilding industry over the last 115 years.

The last catalog that was issued for Carleton as a separate brand was in 1941, hence the reference to that date on my web site.

Carleton serial numbers never had more than five digits - is there a typo in your number as given above?