Mystery Builders

[Benson Gray]

It is not unusual to have discussions here about canoes where we try to identify the builder. I've recently seen some literary references to unidentified canoe builders as well. For example, page 258 of the Maine Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics report from 1909 at the first link below indicates that someone spent $400 to build a new "Canoe Shop" in Seboeis Plantation. I've never been able to find out the name of this canoe builder so please let me know if you have any ideas.

Another mystery was forwarded to me yesterday from page 16 of The Islander in 1906 as shown at the second link and image below. This says that “the entire plant and business of one of the best known Canoe manufacturers in Maine” was moved to Detroit in September of 1905 to get the Detroit Boat Company started making canoes. The canoe industry in Maine was still growing quickly at that point as shown in the chart at the third link below. My guess is that this business may have been run by William R. Luke. W. R. Luke was listed in the 1905 issue of the Maine Register on page 764 as a manufacturer of “Canvas Canoes, Paddles and Poles” in Old Town. He was not listed in the 1906 or later editions. The Bangor Directories from 1893 to 1899 identified him as a "canoemaker" and he probably learned the trade from Evan Gerrish. Page 496 of the 1903 Bangor Brewer Old Town Orono City Directory at the fourth link lists him as a “canoemaker” who lived in Old Town on Brunswick Street near Willow Street. The 1910 census listed him as an “Assembler” at an “Automobile shop” in Detroit. Various other references from the last link below indicate that he was born on 4/25/1863 at Prince Edward Island and died on 2/25/1953 in Ann Arbor, Michigan where he was buried. He moved around a bit with other indications that he was also in Millinocket, Maine and Lapeer, Michigan at various times. Does anyone have a better idea?

Benson

Annual Report

books.google.com

The Inlander

books.google.com

The 1912 peak of canoe manufacturers in Maine

Sam's recent question about Rushton's open gunwale Indian Girls and the 1915 catalog from "J. W. Rushton" got me wondering about the changes in J. H. Rushton's canoe business after his death in 1906. Dan's page at https://woodencanoemuseum.org/builder-history/j-h-rushton-0 provided a broad...

forums.wcha.org

1903 Bangor Brewer Old Town Orono City Directory

By Cannon & Co., Published on 01/01/03

digicom.bpl.lib.me.us

FamilySearch.org

Discover your family history. Explore the world’s largest collection of free family trees, genealogy records and resources.

www.familysearch.org

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Another mystery was forwarded to me yesterday from page 16 of The Islander in 1906 as shown at the second link and image below. This says that “the entire plant and business of one of the best known Canoe manufacturers in Maine”

I see Detroit Boat Company canoe ads in the following issues of The Inlander:
- p. 14 of the May 5, 1906 issue
- p. 16 of the June 6, 1906 issue

In addition to the information about the Detroit Boat Company canoes at the Wooden Canoe Museum, with which I'm sure you're familiar, there is also info about and ads for Detroit Boat Company canoes at this site:

Detroit_Boat_Co._Literature

No mention I can see as to the identity of the supposedly bought out canoe manufacturer in Maine.

 

[chris pearson]

This is so interesting.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Some of the ad claims for Detroit Boat Company canoes are so interesting that I want to buy one RIGHT NOW:

- "permitting one to easily walk from one end of the Canoe to the other without danger of capsizing"

- "will paddle easily as they are built on the principle that they will go over the water and not through it"

- "Detroit Canoes are such that they possess every feature that makes the perfect canoe. In addition, they have several points of merit found exclusively in a Detroit." (May 5, 1906, Inlander)

- "Detroit canoes can't sink."

- "We are the largest manufacturers of canoes in the world."

 

[Benson Gray]

"will paddle easily as they are built on the principle that they will go over the water and not through it"

Their advertising clearly didn't lack hyperbole. The articles at the first two links below confirm that planing by sailboats and motorboats had been demonstrated by the early 1900s. Human powered planing or hydrofoiling was still about fifty years away and didn't involve a canoe as shown in the third link.

"We are the largest manufacturers of canoes in the world."

Many builders have made this claim over the years and there is enough ambiguity that it can be difficult to refute. Most seem to support their position with obvious pride in advertising images of their large factories as shown in the pictures below.

Benson

Planing (boat) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

One of the First Hydrofoils [1907]

hydroplanehistory.com

Wasserläufer – The first human powered hydrofoil ever – Human Powered Hydrofoil

 

[Dave Wermuth]

Fascinating, as I currently live in Lapeer, Mi. Moved here as a child. Not run into the Luke name but oh, how interesting it is.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

B.N. Morris obviously made the hottest canoes . . . because his factory had the most chimneys.

 

[Dave Wermuth]

Benson, I asked the local Lapeer Facebook page is anyone knew of the last name of Luke. And the response was that there was a Rev. Luke (1960's) of the Lutheran church who lived on Pine st in Lapeer. His son was at least partially deaf. If there is a link, I would think that canoe builder Luke would have been Rev. Luke's father. Here in Lapeer, we are one hour north of Detroit on the Flint river which flows north to the Saginaw river and then out the saginaw bay up and around the thumb and back down to detroit and belle Isle.

 

[Walter Peebles]

Scott M. Peters mentions Detroit Boat Company " ... hiring W. L. Luke, formerly superintendent of the Old Town Canoe Company, to manage that aspect of the business." (pg 63 of Peters excellent book Making Waves) From Benson's research above it seems Luke may not have been involved with the Old Town Canoe Company, but rather one of the many Old Town area canoe companies, his own.

Peters also mentions the Detroit Boat Works and the Detroit Boat Company as separate entities, as does the link to antiquengines.com provided by Glenn MacGrady in post #2 above. Peters describes the Detroit Boat Works as being dissolved on May 19, 1902, after having sold its assets at public auction on October 28, 1901. Essentially simultaneously, Hugo Scherer and Frederick E. Wadsworth acquired and moved to Detroit from Kalamazoo the newly begun Michigan Steel Boat Works, which by 1905/6, along with the Detroit Boat Company, is among a handful of companies operated under the umbrella of Wadsworth Manufacturing Company out of the former Olds factory adjacent to the MSBW's plant.

Antiquengines.com has a photo (from the Detroit Public Library) from the New York Boat Show in 1909 showing a huge display of Detroit Boat Company motorboats in Madison Square Gardens. In this photo are fourteen or so motorboats, and about three feet of a canoe. The sign above mentions a "$20 canoe" that also appears in several of Detroit Boat Company's canoe ads that appear online. (More photos: https://digitalcollections.detroitpubliclibrary.org, search in the Burton collection.)

All this makes me wonder if perhaps Scherer and Wadsworth may have essentially acquired and re-started the old "Detroit Boat Works" ("died" 1902) as the "Detroit Boat Company" ("born" some time between then and September 1905)? A slight name change to indicate new ownership, but enough of the old name to let folks know they were a continuation of the old concern? If not, they sure hit the ground running if they bought four acres of factory as a start-up in late 1905, were selling "standard sized Launches - 14, 16, 18, 21 and 25 feet in length" by June 1906, and were making sixty-some different boats by 1909.