Is this a Peterborough Hiawatha?

[Howie]

Just brought in for restoration what I'm told is a Peterborough Hiawatha sail canoe. It's 17 ft long. Is it a Peterborough? It is a Hiawatha? I see no tag ID (although the front deck does have a lighted colored area that may have held a decal) nor serial # on the stems.

Note the full coverage floor where shorter lengths of rib material fill in the space between the ribs. And note the decks as well as the seat spacers made of blocks of wood. And this thing is heavy!

Can anyone provide some catalogue info?

 

[martin ferwerda]

Thompson Hiawatha, attached scan from a 1939 catalog I got off ebay, and am image of the form for the 18 foot version, and yes they are heavy.

 

[Dave Osborn]

Most definitely a Thompson Hiawatha! One of my favorites!
Heavy? Yes, but not when you are paddling.
Had the decal from the Cortland NY Thompson factory .

 

[Howie]

Thanks all... any idea on its age?

 

[Benson Gray]

The page at the link below indicates that this model was listed in the catalogs from 1921 to 1943. A Thompson Courtland decal is shown below.

Benson

Thompson Brothers | Wooden Canoe Museum

woodencanoemuseum.org

 

[MGC]

That (the decal provided by Benson) is the correct one for that canoe. The Peshtigo boats/canoes received a metal tag.
Thompson built good canoes and boats using good materials. That Hiawatha should look really good when you get down with it.

 

[Benson Gray]

The Peshtigo boats/canoes received a metal tag.

There were a few Thompsons from Cortland that got metal tags as shown below.

Benson

 

[Dan Miller]

Half ribs that completely fill the space between ribs is earlier - later on there was a gap between half ribs and full ribs.

There are a number of things about Thompson on my website: https://woodencanoemuseum.org/thompson-brothers - there are a few catalogs; I have more to upload, if there is a particular year of interest, let me know.

There were a couple articles in Wooden Canoe about Thompson, including an early one by the Deans, and a later one by Andreas Rhude.

 

[Dave Osborn]

It’s been a while since I cruised Thompson catalogs, but as I recall, the artwork for the Hiawatha model changed to show the narrower half ribs in 1938 or 39. Maybe that can be verified.
While it’s not necessarily when the rib width changed definitively, it is at least something to go on as far as differentiating approximate dating.

 

[Michael Grace]

I have a Thompson square-stern boat with the metal Cortland tag, the top one in Benson's message above.