The Old Town canoe with serial number 78887 is an 18 foot long, CS grade, Otca model with Western red cedar planking, open spruce gunwales, birch decks, birch trim, and a keel. It was built between August, 1923(?) and May, 1924. The original exterior paint color was dark green with a three inch border stripe as well as a half inch gold stripe with turned down ends. This was probably similar to the image at
http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/designs/design10.gif and known as design number 10. It shipped to Newark, New Jersey. A scan of this build record can be found by following the link at the attached thumbnail image below.
This scan was created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others. A description of the project to preserve these records is available at
http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/records/ if you want more details. I hope that you will renew your membership to the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See
http://www.wcha.org/wcha/ to learn more about the WCHA and
http://www.wcha.org/join.html to renew.
Unfortuantely, the only other thing that I can tell you is that this canoe was originally delivered to a dealer named Ludlow and Squire at 97 Market Street. This site is now occupied by the Universal Church. The rest of the ownership provenance, historical research, and creative storytelling is up to you.
It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match your canoe. Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions.
Benson