Old Town 144663 is a 16 foot CS (common sense or middle) grade HW (heavy water) model canoe that was completed March-June 1946, with open spruce gunwales, ash decks, thwarts, and seats, a keel and a floor rack. It was originally dark green. It was shipped to Paterson, NJ, on June 25, 1946.
It's hard for me to tell if this record matches your canoe. The serial number would be the same on both stems, with a space and "16". The deck should be the usual Old Town short deck with the "ogee" cutout (see
www.dragonflycanoe.com/id/ and scroll to Old Town to see what this looks like). This is a war era canoe and may have slatted seats-- so it sounds right not having caned seats. Canoes often don't stray far from their original destination.
Image of the scan of this record is attached below-- click on it to get a larger image.
This scan and several hundred thousand others were 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/ot_records/ if you want more details. I hope that you will join or 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.php to join.
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.
Kathy
