An Old Town canoe with serial number 54140 is shown as 16 feet long, CS (common sense or standard) grade, an HW (heavy water) model with western red cedar planking, spruce gunwales, birch decks, thwarts, and seats, and equipped with a keel (though the ambiguous placement of the date stamp could mean that it was instead equipped with outside stems -- though a canoe iwth outside stems would usually also have a keel). The canoe was built between May and June 1919. The original exterior paint was brilliant green. It was shipped to Boston, MassachusettsArmstrong & Galbraith, Inc., 79 Barclay St., New York, New York on July 7, 1919. An inquiry about this canoe was made to Old Town on July 23, 1980. Scans of this build record can be found by following the link behind the thumbnail images attached below.
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/about-the-wcha/ to learn more about the WCHA and
http://store.wcha.org/WCHA-New-Membership.html 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.
Greg
