If someone is listed in the 1920 US census as living in West Bridgewater, Plymouth County, MA, as a canoe builder in a canoe factory, where might he have worked?
Question for our Massachusetts historians
- Thread starter Dan Miller
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Larry Meyer
Wooden Canoes are in the Blood
Proximity of residence to factory suggests that there was canoe factory nearby, but I have never heard of one from that era in Plymouth County, such as any one of the well-known builders and canoe factories along the Charles River in Waltham, Newton, etc. It does appear likely that Bridgewater did have its own version of the Charles River canoe club mania of the 1920s, as there still exists in Bridgewater a Canoe Club Ballroom on the Town River.
Larry Meyer
Wooden Canoes are in the Blood
A brief history of this facility can be found at:
http://www.wickedlocal.com/x1911641...oe-Club-in-West-Bridgewater?template=printart
http://www.wickedlocal.com/x1911641...oe-Club-in-West-Bridgewater?template=printart
pklonowski
Unrepentant Canoeist
Googling "Nunckatessett Canoe Club" yields 997 hits... and it becomes its own research project!
A quick tour through Google Books shows The New England Business Directory and Gazetteer for 1922. It has sections for "Boat Builders" and "Boats to Let" that includes the names of many familiar canoe builders as shown below. I didn't see anything listed in Bridgewater, Brockton, or any other surrounding towns. My guess is that he was building on a very small scale and may have been working directly with some of the local canoe clubs like several of the smaller builders in the Charles River area did.
Benson
Benson
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OP
OP
Thanks for the replies. There are some fantastic photos of the Nunckatessett Canoe Club on one of the sites that came up on Google.
As I ponder it further, I wonder if it might be a red herring. Our gentleman in question is presumed to have been working at the Morris factory in Veazie (per 1910 US census), and he may well have moved south after finding himself suddenly unemployed in January of 1920. He may have simply listed his former occupation for the census.
Another Veazie canoe builder (1910) had also moved south and was listed as a laborer in a color works in Ashland, MA, on the 1920 US Census.
As I ponder it further, I wonder if it might be a red herring. Our gentleman in question is presumed to have been working at the Morris factory in Veazie (per 1910 US census), and he may well have moved south after finding himself suddenly unemployed in January of 1920. He may have simply listed his former occupation for the census.
Another Veazie canoe builder (1910) had also moved south and was listed as a laborer in a color works in Ashland, MA, on the 1920 US Census.
Larry Meyer
Wooden Canoes are in the Blood
I was kind of surprised that there was such a large club in West Bridgewater. The Patriot Ledger article says the second club housed 144 canoes! There were several clubs along the Charles, often associated with and serviced by a builder. So it’s not improbable that this guy moved to Bridgewater because he thought he could get a job there. The materials found by Merola, mentioned in the article, might be worth a close study.
The contact information for the Canoe Club is at http://www.canoeclubballroom.com/contact if anyone in the area wants to pursue this. This sounds like it would be a great article for the Wooden Canoe Journal.
Benson
Just as an aside, this was likely a reference to a predecessor of the Nyanza Chemical Company, a huge Superfund Site. Dyes from the plant turned the various tributaries to the Sudbury River (including one called "Chemical Brook") multiple colors. Mercury release from the plant poisoned the Sudbury and rivers downstream. Fish consumption is banned to this day.
Canoe builders were frequently moving from Maine to Massachusetts in that era. Herbert C. King is shown on the left in the pictures below from the Old Town Canoe paint room around 1905. The modern picture shows how that area of the factory looked just before it was torn down. He moved to Springfield because he could get better pay painting pin stripes at the Rolls Royce factory there. The model canoe that he took with him is also shown below. This is another case of the cobbler's children going barefoot since he didn't paint any fancy designs on his own model canoe.
Benson
Benson
