Morris Short Decks

[Kathryn Klos]

Examples of short decks on B.N. Morris canoes include:

the Morris heart deck in mahogany;

a somewhat "wider" heart, as seen on the "model B" Morris canoe;

deck with decal reading "canvas, paddling, and MOTOR";

deck with Folsom Arms medallion;

deck with Abercrombie and Fitch medallion; and

deck with decal reading "canvas, paddling, and ROWING".

 

[Kathryn Klos]

More Morris Short Decks

Examples of Morris decks include:

Heart-shaped deck on canoe 3882 in birdseye maple;

Veazie (by Morris) curved deck in maple (note shadow of Veazie decal);

Veazie (by Morris) curved deck in mahogany, with decal;

three images of Veazie keyhole deck, showing the degree of undercutting on reverse side. Note that this deck is essentially the curve-style with an additional circular "keyhole area" cut out.

The keyhole deck pre-dates the curved deck, and it can be speculated that they skipped the step wherein the extra circle was cut out and decided the deck looked fine that way. Would be interesting to know if the curved deck-style appeared first on the Veazie (Morris' lower-priced canoe) and then migrated to the "first class" canoe.

By the last years of Morris' production, this curved deck appears more often than the heart on short-decked canoes and was used on B.N. Morris and Veazie models.