Denis T Yurkovich
New Member
Recently acquired a courting canoe that the previous owner believed to be a Morris. The long decks are 24 inches back and 36 inches in the front of the canoe and do somewhat resemble pictures of Morris' long decks I have seen. (The canoe had been in his family since the 1930's, and was even registered as a Morris with ID # 16616.) However, the canoe does not have the Morris splayed stem and keel is screwed on through every other rib. The stem is squared and marked like an Old Town typically would be, not a brass tag of a Morris.
I had Old Town research the number and 16616 was a 16 footer and did not match otherwise either. The middle digit is difficult to read on both stems #16816 17 seems to provide the best match as a 1911 Charles River with all the mahogany components, open gunwales, etc. But there is no mention of the long decks on the build card. As I have seen many CR with typical size decks I'd expect that would have been called out. And the pics of Old Town long decks I have seen are styled differently than this canoe's.
The deck very much resembles pics I have seen of Carleton long decks. I know Old Town took over making Carleton canoes around this time so I anticipated Old town to have a build record. But are the Carleton serial numbers an entirely different dataset? Any help to identify is appreciated.
I had Old Town research the number and 16616 was a 16 footer and did not match otherwise either. The middle digit is difficult to read on both stems #16816 17 seems to provide the best match as a 1911 Charles River with all the mahogany components, open gunwales, etc. But there is no mention of the long decks on the build card. As I have seen many CR with typical size decks I'd expect that would have been called out. And the pics of Old Town long decks I have seen are styled differently than this canoe's.
The deck very much resembles pics I have seen of Carleton long decks. I know Old Town took over making Carleton canoes around this time so I anticipated Old town to have a build record. But are the Carleton serial numbers an entirely different dataset? Any help to identify is appreciated.