Old Town and Carleton War Canoes

[smallboatshop]

Is it an Old Town or a Carleton?

This is just an observation for identification of war canoes--

We are currently working on a 1924 OT 25' war canoe sold in June 1924. It has an OT number but is of the same construction as a Carleton that we worked on a couple of years ago that was also sold in June of 1924. At that time Old Town owned Carleton and the build records were the same but the numbering different. The build record for the Carleton said 'Carleton War' under 'model' and had the Carleton numbering.

These two canoes have the same construction for bracing under the decks, the coaming is nailed rather than screwed and most importantly, these two have no keelson.

We have also worked on a 1925 OT War Canoe which had a keelson and bracing posts between each thwart and the keelson; and this canoe had different bracing under the decks and had coaming that was attached with screws.

The OT catalogs from 1915 through 1925 describe the war canoes "They are strongly braced, equipped with keel and outside stems, 30" long decks,..." The reference to bracing seems to indicate that Old Town War Canoes had the keelson and the bracing posts between the thwarts and the keelson. So it would seem that Old Town was selling two different 25' War Canoes. For identification, both models are Old Towns but only one is described in the catalog.

That's all I know...

 

[Dan Miller]

To further confound things, up until 1910, the Carleton war canoe was listed as 38 feet long. From 1911 (following Carleton's acquisition by Old Town) through 1922, the Carleton war canoes were now offered in 25 and 35 feet lengths. Old Towns were 25 and 34 feet during the this time. From 1923 until Old Town folded the Carleton brand (1942) the two brands war canoes are listed at the same length.

My guess is that Old Town probably never built canoes on the Carleton 38' mold (assuming that is what they indeed had), but simply used the 25' and 34' molds they already had. (My recollection is that one mold served both lenghts with the addition of a 9' removable midsection mold). It appears in the cut shown in the 1908 Carleton catalog that their 38' war canoe does have a keelson.

The presence or absence of a keelson is easily explained. The mold has to be constructed especially to accept a keelson (if you've taken one apart, you'll know that the ribs were nailed to the keelson before the planking was in place, so it wasn't installed after removal from the mold). To build a canoe without a keelson is a simple matter of just omitting it and carrying on with construction. (This is similar to how Thompson built both the Indian and Hiawatha models on the same forms). There may or may not have been rhyme or reason for the decision to build keelson-less or not...