Don’t laugh…

[MGC]

It seems that on early canvas boats, they looked at planking like sheathing on a bark canoe. A means to the end….just something underneath the canvas so who gives a crap?! Strictly a place saver….

I can buy that.....although there was an order to the build of well-made bark canoes. That is a helpful perspective.
Most of us will never experience working on such early craft and may (as I have) come under the impression that the construction would be more orderly. That particular canoe looks like it was made of bits and pieces, a patchwork if you wish.
What sort of tacks are used on it?

 

[1905Gerrish]

My thoughts about this old canoe....
Unfortunately, I haven't seen it in person, but I believe it is a Gerrish and easily identified. Nothing can be certain for sure but there are so many examples that point towards it being a Gerrish. Attached are a few photos of my Gerrish's planking during restoration that is the same as Chris's canoe. Before Chris purchased this canoe, he sent me a few poor-quality photos of it and immediately I said, it was a Gerrish and was a twin to mine. I am aware of three other similar type built Gerrish's that I have good photos of. A bit of mind set on these canoes. They were probably built in the late 1880's. These were a means of transportation for trappers, fisherman and hunters heading into the woods it this time. Being found in the upper peninsula of Michigan, my point exactly. Nothing was fancy, there were meant to be functional transportation as the birchbarks that they were side by side with, were leaking and needing much more maintenance at the time. This was the "new and improved" as stated in 1886 newspaper article with seating. I tend to believe this could be a second quality canoe as marketed in the letter by Evan many years later. Second quality models are marketed in the known catalogs as well. The cost is substantially less from one to the other. Fit and finish are what I believe are in question. Another point is, there were VERY few options of another builder at this time. The few others were located in the vicinity of Gerrish. Gerrish had strong marketing at this time with canoes being sent all over the country and beyond as stated in numerous newspaper articles I have uncovered. He had two reach South America in 1886 that were purchased in New Orleans, and I have seen several articles of his canoes being sent to Minnesota around the same time.

Zack

 

[1905Gerrish]

Are you absolutely certain that is a Gerrish? These from 813. The planking pattern is pretty dialed in. What is odd on this boat are variety of rib widths.
View attachment 58741View attachment 58742

Mike, I would not be surprised if your canoe was built 1000+ canoes later the one Chris has uncovered. Certainly, larger scale production would increase the standardization of a build.

 

[chris pearson]

People. This makes so much sense when you think about all the facts presented. Although I do agree with Zach’s documented fact that I most definitely have a “second quality” Gerrish, the fact remains that on these early boats, they were still developing the standard planking patterns. I’m absolutely ecstatic to own such early grass roots canvas canoes. What an amazing piece of history!!! Gerrish or not, it’s an early Maine made canoe. And it was definitely made on a form, with much thought going into its lines!!!!!

 

[Dan Miller]

Are the directions of the clinched tacks random or do they all point the same way?

 

[Michael Grace]

No matter what, this is an interesting canoe and an interesting thread. However, it seems that there's a good bit of supposition and circular logic going on here. This canoe certainly could be a Gerrish and even a very early one, but it feels like facts are developing out of thin air. What this thread seems to say overall is that this canoe has Gerrish-like features so it's probably a Gerrish, and because the planking pattern is a bit random, then it must be early. Therefore this must be an early Gerrish canoe, and all early Gerrish canoes had random planking patterns. Huh?

This could all turn out to be true, but right now we have a small collection of observations from a very small group of unmarked canoes. Please don't think I'm attacking anyone's ideas here. I'm not, and I'm very interested in all of this. Just trying to understand what we really know and be clear about what we don't. Recently Benson resurrected the discussion about how many wooden canoes have been built and how many survive. It seems that available evidence suggests that perhaps 2% of wooden canoes made survive today:

Thread 'What is the total number of wooden canoes that were made and how many still exist?'

Apr 29, 2015

I am occasionally asked "What is the total number of wooden canoes that were made and how many still exist?" but I've never had a good answer. Kathy's recent article in the Wooden Canoe Journal mentioned that there are a total of 335 Morris canoes in her database. This gave me an idea of how to come up with a better answer to the original questions as shown in the table below.

There are some records from the Old Town Canoe Company which indicate that the highest Morris serial number may be 17262. Kathy's total divided by this total produces a nearly 2% survival rate. It appears that...

• Benson Gray
• Replies: 10
• Forum: Research and History

The survival rate is surely lower for the earliest builders and probably even lower for canoes that were built for hard use as was suggested for the canoe discussed here. Based on the survival of at least several of these random-planked Gerrish-like canoes, this would mean that hundreds if not thousands of these may have been built. In the beginning of a builder's career, how great was production? How long would it have taken to build hundreds of canoes? Why wouldn't the process have improved over that time?

As for the builder, is it possible that there are still undiscovered makers of wooden canoes? Extremely likely. We know about Gerrish partly because his business grew into an active one, he advertised, and he was written about. Surely there were a variety of others whose businesses didn't grow, who didn't advertise. Maybe they dabbled, maybe they moved on to other work, maybe they died early, but surely others existed beyond what we know from tags, ads, etc. And those early builders - commercial builders and others - were probably copying canoes they saw (birchbarks, Gerrishes, etc.). So maybe similar features (maybe identical features) came from multiple builders. This reminds me that back in the 80s or so, there were numerous examples of long-decked canoes attributed to Kennebec because people seemed to only know about Kennebec's K-Special. Because Kennebec made a long-decked canoe, then all long-decked canoes were Kennebecs. Precious few of those canoes turned out to be Kennebecks once we learned more.

Again, nothing negative intended. These discussions are part of how we learn and make new discoveries. I am excited, curious, and cautious. There may be fascinating new discoveries waiting to be had in all this.

 

[chris pearson]

Make no mistake, I’m not trying to “develop facts out of thin air” here. I’m just comparing it to a fully intact, original Gerrish in my possession. With the bow deck missing I cannot with 100% certainty say it’s a Gerrish. Are we in agreement that it’s old at least?

 

[chris pearson]

Are the directions of the clinched tacks random or do they all point the same way?

Hard to tell for sure at this point Dan.

 

[Michael Grace]

Yes, it certainly looks old, looks like Maine, and has lots of features found on Gerrish canoes. No worries, and exciting in any case - all of this is important as we continue to develop wooden canoe history. As things get somewhat stable, we (humans) tend to think we've figured everything out. So when a new bit of information - a new surprise - comes out of an old shed or barn, it's very exciting!

 

[Rollin Thurlow]

I estimated this Gerrish to be around the early to mid 1890's. I didn't have real good pictures of the planking but if you blow up the pictures enough you can see the planking and goring is kind of uniform but not nearly as uniform as it becomes latter on. I would assume that canoes earlier than this, the planking shaping was even less uniform
I though Chris might be interested in the deck shape and thwart design even though his canoe appears to be earlier than this one.

 

[chris pearson]

Speaking of Gerrish’s decks. I know they also changed as these advanced. Note the similarities from Rollins photo to my stern deck. There is also patinaed evidence of decorative caning across the deck

 

[MGC]

Chris,
What kind of wood do you think that deck is made from?
Mike

 

[patrick corry]

I appreciate this thread, both for the historical interest and the minutiae of building detail. I wonder how the decks were relieved/coved on the underside in those days- gouged with a curved chisel like a bowl? I also noticed the inconsistency in the thickness of the decks between Rollin's and Chris's images- one is thicker than the inwale and one less so. I also noticed the stopped chamfer on the underside corner of Rollin's inwale as it meets the deck corner... details matter!

And, while I guess half-lapped thwarts are rare and found only on capped gunwales, it's interesting to see the half dovetail detail of Rollin's thwart. Yes, held with 2 screws, but also utilizing the half dovetail to resist spreading.

Chris, in your underside deck photo, I can see past the deck to the back side of the stem. There appears to be a repair of the tip and what looks like an inlaid spline. Is that what I'm seeing?

Thanks for this discussion. All this stuff would be great to see added to the site Photo Index. Or maybe that happens automatically?

 

[chris pearson]

Chris,
What kind of wood do you think that deck is made from?
Mike

Mike, spruce. Same wood as my old Gerrish….

 

[chris pearson]

I appreciate this thread, both for the historical interest and the minutiae of building detail. I wonder how the decks were relieved/coved on the underside in those days- gouged with a curved chisel like a bowl? I also noticed the inconsistency in the thickness of the decks between Rollin's and Chris's images- one is thicker than the inwale and one less so. I also noticed the stopped chamfer on the underside corner of Rollin's inwale as it meets the deck corner... details matter!

And, while I guess half-lapped thwarts are rare and found only on capped gunwales, it's interesting to see the half dovetail detail of Rollin's thwart. Yes, held with 2 screws, but also utilizing the half dovetail to resist spreading.

Chris, in your underside deck photo, I can see past the deck to the back side of the stem. There appears to be a repair of the tip and what looks like an inlaid spline. Is that what I'm seeing?

Thanks for this discussion. All this stuff would be great to see added to the site Photo Index. Or maybe that happens automatically?

Patrick, yes, it’s a repair. I do an angled splice and then slot it and insert a piece of wood going the other way for strength.

 

[Benson Gray]

All this stuff would be great to see added to the site Photo Index. Or maybe that happens automatically?

No, all additions to the Photo Index section are manual and user driven. Any search of these forums for "Gerrish planking" or something similar will probably find this thread as easily.

There have been some interesting comments here about using the planking pattern (or lack thereof) as an identification technique. I have been collecting planking images for some time to see if this could help identify some of the UFOs. My conclusion so far is that this can offer some clues but it clearly isn't definitive. There have been wide variations over time, even among builders like Old Town who usually had a very distinctive and well defined pattern. An obvious lack of a pattern probably indicates an early canoe but this is not a guarantee.

Benson

 

[dtdcanoes]

So, a beak or a biscuit it is.....hmm. A bit of spruce board left about , no need to thin 'er just get the hand hold comfortable, flat's good, shave 'er quick and in.
You can just feel these oldest boats come together , one at at time, WOW. One lucky guy, that Chris.
Can't wait to see it.
Dave

 

[1905Gerrish]

I estimated this Gerrish to be around the early to mid 1890's. I didn't have real good pictures of the planking but if you blow up the pictures enough you can see the planking and goring is kind of uniform but not nearly as uniform as it becomes latter on. I would assume that canoes earlier than this, the planking shaping was even less uniform
I though Chris might be interested in the deck shape and thwart design even though his canoe appears to be earlier than this one.

Rollin,
On top of the decks and thwarts, don't forget the seat. This is where I'm sold on it being a Gerrish and no question. The rear and only seat of the canoe in question vs. my rear seat of my oldest Gerrish. Gerrish was the only one who manufactured seats this way as far as I am aware? Rollin, do you concur? Rivet construction lapped into the rail and riveted on the underside. Basically, a quarter thwart with extra support to make a seat. The first style seat in any W/C canoe as far as I'm concerned (1886, per the "new and improved Gerrish canoe with seats" newspaper article I have posted in a separate thread).

Chris,
I didn't ask yet, but I assume there are no screws throughout the build? Nails holding the good deck in place? I have worked on numerous canoes that use nail construction that I date in the early 1890's or before including the White I'm finishing currently. Some use rivets in place along with nails.

Zack

 

[patrick corry]

Hey Zack, in your first seat picture, there's that half dovetail lap joint onto the inwale again!

 

[chris pearson]

Zack, yes, nails holding on the deck, no screws. There are 2 screws on the seat rails, but obvious not original due to marks from the rivet washers…….