Old Town's Repair Records

[Kathryn Klos]

Spent the morning logging data from the OT repair records on Morris canoes into our WCHA BN Morris Database. Much of the information we are asking of current Morris owners exists on the cards and adds to the overall picture. Additionally, if a current owner were to submit a serial number from this group, they'd get some interesting historical information. Anyone with a Morris that was finished at Old Town after the fire would get a build record with ship-date.

Naturally, more questions arise... The canoes finished at Old Town after the 1920 fire were shells, and yet they had serial numbers assigned by the Morris factory, which leads me to wonder if a s/n was assigned at the time the order was taken. The serial numbers in the list aren't sequential... and canoes sent to the same dealer aren't sequentially numbered.

It also occurred to me that if anyone secures a canoe of any maker from someone who says, "my grandpa had new canvas put on by OT", they could dig around in the repair records and maybe find their canoe, and get some history.

Anyway... these records are a valuable resource and are great fun to examine... it's a sunny day, and here I am at the computer...

 

[Benson Gray]

which leads me to wonder if a s/n was assigned at the time the order was taken. The serial numbers in the list aren't sequential...

Old Town assigns a serial number and stamps it in the stems when the canoe comes off the form. This is usually marked on the build record as the "Half Built" date. It appears that Kennebec did the same and Morris may have also. These canoes would not have been stored in serial number order either so it is likely that any warehouse of partially completed canoes from Morris or anyone else would not contain sequential serial numbers.

This may also explain why the earliest Old Town build record cards do not start sequentially either. The new form of record keeping may have been initiated when they already had a factory full of partially built canoes.

Benson