Counting House Museum
The Old Berwick Historical Society
Membership, Business Membership & Volunteers
Old Berwick Historical Society
Counting House Museum
PO Box 296
South Berwick, ME 03908
(207) 384-0000Inquiries:
Done by VolunteersLast Updated:
6/12/2007
2004 Annual Meeting
The Gundalow in South Berwick
On May 15, 2004, the gundalow CAPT. ADAMS made history-- first, by arriving under its own power -- Gundalow Company crew rowed with the sweeps and flowed on the incoming tide. Second, a modification of the mast allowed passage under the Route 101 bridge for the first time since the gundalow was built over 20 years ago. Third, the ADAMS became the first gundalow in about a century since to navigate the Salmon Falls River.
Hundreds of visitors, including 800 children from five area schools, enjoyed climbing aboard the gundalow during its 10 days in South Berwick in May, 2004.
The gundalow on the river shore below the Hamilton House in a scene evocative of Sarah Orne Jewett's novel, "The Tory Lover." The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) welcomed the CAPT. ADAMS and opened the Hamilton House for tours.
With the society experiencing one of the largest annual meeting turnouts, close to 100 visitors took turns climbing aboard on the evening of May 20.
Below the windows of the Hamilton House (behind the trees), visitors board the gundalow just as rivermen did 200 years ago.
Historical society members heard about the shipyards that once produced vessels that circled the globe. One such tall ship has been marked by pink tape."York Deeds" records the sale of property as early as 1727 near "ye Mouth of the Little Brook at the ship Yard at the Lower End of Pipe Stave Point." This is the brook that flows today among the trees shown in this photo. Dozens of ships were launched here by merchants such as Jonathan Hamilton and later Sarah Orne Jewett's grandfather, Theodore F. Jewett, as late as the 1840s.
For a century or more in the 1700s and early 1800s, the river shore below the Hamilton House was a shipyard. Here is the presumed construction site of the CATO, a 275-ton ship built by Jonathan Hamilton in 1790. Length 92 feet, beam 23 feet. The vessel's outline is presented with pink tape, with the bow lying toward the house.
At the May 20 annual meeting, Nate Hazen of the Gundalow Company toured OBHS members along the shore to view ancient timbers, the remains of some 250 feet of wharf said to have lined the river two centuries ago.
After the gundalow tours, OBHS president Ernie Wood led the society's 42nd annual meeting at the Hamilton House garden cottage, including tributes to founders Bob Whitehouse and Marie Donahue.Ernie said later, "The annual meeting celebrating the 42 year of OBHS has concluded and what a celebration it was. I was so proud to be a part of such a positive atmosphere."
At the annual meeting, society founder Bob Whitehouse was recognized for his lifetime of enthusiastic interpretation of gundalow history, including the May 2004 Central School "Hike through History" at the Counting House Museum. Barker's actual horsehide trunk is on display at the museum.
Bob Whitehouse with Chris Clauson and Genine Boggiano playing Captain Gooch Cheney and Elizabeth Ann Barker as Kathy Perry looks on.
May 14, 2004 Central School students on the Hike Through History
