Possible Gerrish Photo

[Murat V]

Not sure if it's been posted here before, but came across this photo (circa 1915) on MaineMemory.net page:

This Zoom Link allows you to see much more detail. Noticed the closed gunnel construction and the decorative lashings on the ends, including what looks like the symbolic thwart lashing just before the deck.

Do any of the experts out there know if these features are unique to just Gerrish canoes or did any other early makers of cedar canvas use decorative lashings like this?

 

[Kathryn Klos]

I'm not a Gerrish expert, but the canoe in the picture looks classically Gerrish to me. I don't know if it's known for certain that nobody else used decorative lashings as Gerrish did. In the close-up, it looks like there might be a name plate right where I would expect a Gerrish name plate to be.

The rail-tips on our new old canoe that looks Gerrishy (but is probably not a Gerrish) are wrapped in leather. I believe E.M. White wrapped rail-tips in leather, and maybe others did too.

Jerry Stelmok's Millennium Sojourner has lashings: http://www.islandfallscanoe.com/our-canoes.asp?cat=1086

Kathy

 

[chris pearson]

I think so but check out the chick just left of the guns and paddles, is she waivin some heat!??

 

[Greg Nolan]

I think so but check out the chick just left of the guns and paddles, is she waivin some heat!??

Chris --

I think she's waving a pipe, and her friend in the plaid skirt is brandishing a bottle of some kind -- liquid carbohydrates, perhaps?

And on the question of lashings, Dan Neal used decorative cane lashings on some of his canoes, though they looked different than Gerrish's lashings or the ones in the picture, so I suppose other builders may have also.

 

[1905Gerrish]

That is a Gerrish.