ACBS Rudder, Spring 99

Officers for '98-'99

President...............John Harvey
(Southwest)
Vice President...Jean Hoffman
(Adirondack)
Vice President..Mark Evans
(S. New England)
Vice President..Bette Shutte
(N. Cal./Lake Tahoe)
Secretary..Jeffrey Rogers
(Water Wonderland)
Treasurer.............Ann Storandt
(1000 Islands)
Past President............Tom Flood
(Michigan)

Directors

Jeff Stebbins (BSLOL) ...............1999
Dave Ryel (Thousand Islands)...........1999
Walter Weber (Hudson River)...........1999
Larry Ginsburg (Southern California)..1999
W.C. Bill Joslyn (Sunnyland)............2000
Don Babcock (Dixieland)..................2000
Martin Zonnenberg (Blue Ridge).......2000
Dick Sherwood (Finger Lakes)..........2000
Bob Bush (N. Cal./Lake Tahoe)..........2001
Ron Dulmage (Southwest).................2001
Kent Smith (ChesapeakeBay).......2001
Jim Staib (Blackhawk).......................2001
Directors at Large Tab Miller (Chesapeake)
Dean Guy (Sunnyland)
David Burns (Toronto)

President's Message

My message this quarter is really a progress report...a "State of the Society" if you will. Sometimes when I stop and think about all that is going on within the ACBS, it is hard to recognize that sleepy little "old boat" club that started this whole group nearly 25 years ago.

Our winter meeting in Crystal River, Florida was great fun. The Sunnyland Chapter hosted one of their boat shows at the Plantation Inn, with a wonderful turnout of boats. Lots of boat rides for everyone to go see the manatees. Sunnyland has hosted the ACBS International Winter Board meetings year after year with a very gracious spirit. While it is often easy to overlook the work it takes, I just wanted to give a heartfelt thanks to the Sunnyland Chapter for all of the years of winter meetings they have hosted - from boat rides to dinners - they are always gracious, wonderful hosts. Thank you Sunnyland!

This year our members are going to see some real changes in all areas. The Winter meeting was a very productive and focused meeting. The spirit of teamwork and commitment is apparent in all areas, from officers to directors to committee chairpersons. Overall, everyone is focused on accomplishing the goals set for 1999. The Membership and Directory Committee is working hard to have our membership directory in your mailboxes 3-4 weeks earlier than usual. Along with getting the directory sooner, you will now have members’ Email addresses as well as fax numbers. The directory will also include some new sections: an alphabetical listing of boat names, the complete, newly revised Constitution and ByLaws, and best of all, a new Supplier Section. My hearty thanks goes out to Dick Sherwood for making this happen. It was no easy task and took many long days.

This past year has been a tremendous year for growth. We have added four new chapters starting with the Rocky Mountain Classic Chapter - Colorado, the Philadelphia Chapter - Pennsylvania, the Allegheny Chapter - western Pennsylvania, and our newest 44th chapter, the Heartland Classic Chapter - Oklahoma. Our membership will be over 5000 even though the sign up for the directory closed 4 weeks earlier than in the past.

ACBS continues to strive to provide services to our members that are worthwhile as well as valuable. A great example is our own RUDDER, a premier antique and classic boat publication that has evolved to its present state only through tremendous effort by Chris Eden and company. We work hard every year to keep our dues constant. That is the reason why we have a great fundraiser this year - 300 for $300.00. ACBS will hold a raffle for a 1999 Suburban. Only 300 tickets will be sold for $300.00 per ticket. The cost of your ticket is tax deductible(U.S. only). As soon as the 300 tickets are sold, the raffle will close, so send your ticket in quickly...they are selling fast! This is a terrific way to benefit ACBS as well as possibly winning a new Suburban. Thanks goes to Jeff Stebbins for his hard work on this project!

Headquarters has just received all new computer hardware as well as software to handle our database. As soon as our database is converted to the new software, ACBS be Y2K compliant but even better than that, Kathy Snyder, our Headquarters Manager, is really, really happy! Another area being addressed is a completely new look to our Web page, so look for that change in the coming months.

Again, I want to continue to urge everyone to come join your Board of Directors at the quarterly meetings. We will meet on May 14-16 in Jonesboro, Georgia and August 6-8 in Clayton, NY during the Antique Boat Museum’s annual boat show. Our 1999 Annual meeting will be in Red Wing, Minnesota on September 23-27th. Red Wing is on the upper Mississippi River. After many complaints over the years regarding how expensive the annual meeting has become, the objective for the Annual Meeting committee this year was to make the meeting more affordable for our members. This year the room rate at Treasure Island Casino & Resort is $65.00 per night! Now with your biggest excuse gone...mark your calendar to join us in Red Wing.

As I said at the beginning...this is a progress report and I’m excited about the progress we are making! There are lots of projects to be done and we are always looking for people who would like to be involved...either a little or a lot. If you have interest in an area, please feel free to contact me at 972-377-6222(home), 972-377-6999(fax) or email at jharvey@voyagermarine.com.

A 2,000 MILE ODYSSEY:
Outboard Runabouts to Alaska...In 1948

In the fall of 1947, young Everett Harris had a wild idea.
The 15-year-old and his father, Roy, had recently completed a 350-mile beach-camping adventure through the waters of Puget Sound in the company of friends Jay and Dorothy Caylor, aboard two Reinell lapstrake runabouts.
The trip had been well-publicized, including a feature-length article in the West Coast publication, Pacific Motor Boat. The Puget Sound expedition was fun, but Everett wanted more and had a suggestion: How about taking our boats north to Alaska next summer?
Alaska?
In two small outboard boats?
Had anyone even done that before?
After studying charts and talking to commercial fishermen who had made the trip north, Roy Harris and his friends, the Caylors, found themselves going along with young Everett. A trip to Alaska would be a great adventure. Why not give it a try?
Harris, soft-spoken and inventive, was superintendent of the local school district in Bellingham, Washington, north of Seattle. Jay Caylor worked for a farm-implement company in the area, and both had owned 18-foot Reinell lapstrake runabouts for several years. Roy's boat, Aleta, had been built by Reinell Boat Works in 1937 at the company's Marysville, Washington plant. Jay's 18-foot Reinell, Skip, was newer, delivered in 1941, but both boats had seen a lot of use. (See sidebar on the Reinell company.)
As the idea of a 2,000-mile Alaska odyssey took hold, the four boaters began to focus on details. The plan was to leave Bellingham in early June, 1948, and to camp-cruise their way north through the fabled Inside Passage of British Columbia and Southeastern Alaska, reaching Juneau, the capitol of Alaska, before turning south for home.
Challenged by the scope of the adventure - they hadn't undertaken anything like this before - Roy Harris decided to seek support from others. On New Year's Eve, 1947, he wrote to the Advertising Department of Evinrude Motors, suggesting that they take advantage of publicity the trip would generate by supplying two new Speedifour engines to power the boats to Alaska and back.
Harris mentioned that he and the Caylors had been enthusiastic Evinrude owners for years, and that their 33.4 and 50-hp Evinrudes had performed well during the previous summer's Puget Sound cruise.
The Vice President of Evinrude, E. Biersach, responded with cautious enthusiasm, asking for details. After a brief exchange, he agreed to provide two shiny-new 33.4-hp Speedifours, along with a couple of Sportwin trolling motors, a boxload of spare parts, and a 16-mm film camera to help document the adventure.

Roy Harris was concerned about rough sea conditions they might encounter during the trip, and he wasn't sure about the spacing of gas docks. (Would they make it with normal, small outboard tanks?) Hoping to improve their odds, Roy and Everett strengthened their 18-footer by adding a second set of oak frames between each existing frame -doubling the number of ribs in the boat. (Thanks to his position as school superintendent, they were able to accomplish the task in the woodworking shop of a local high school.) They also installed a Model A gas tank to improve the range of their boat.
As the departure date loomed, the boaters collected supplies: water and gas cans, a G.I. camp stove, tarps, tents, sleeping bags, fishing gear, anchors and lines, cooking utensils, rain gear, extra clothes and two Kodak still cameras-one for black-and-white, the other to shoot color film. They also packed a substantial collection of spare parts for the Speedifours, including crankshafts, pistons and rings, connecting rods, propeller shafts and gears, bushings, roller bearings, magneto assemblies, props and shear pins, coils, plugs, pump impellers and more.
Sunday morning, June 6, the Harrises and Caylors crammed their heavy load of gear into the two boats and launched at nearby Fisherman's Cove, where the annual Lummi Water Carnival was being held. Friends and family members gathered, some in other small boats. A Navy band played "Auld Lang Syne," and the boats pushed off, turning north amid cheers from well-wishers.
Running with a light load, the Reinells were capable of 30 mph speeds. Bogged down for the Alaska trip, however, they were slowed to a cruising range of 15-18 mph, using 10" by 10" Michigan Aqua-Master propellers.
The plan was to travel four to six hours per day, hopping from one fuel dock to the next, beach-camping most of the way and occasionally staying in logging camps or hotels. Roy Harris had been chief planner of the trip; his son Everett would do much of the gear-hauling and camp set-up work. Jay Caylor served as chief mechanic and navigator, and Dorothy prepared meals and kept the boys in line.
The trip promised its share of adventures-and delivered.
Enjoying a calm, glassy-water start, the four camped on Stuart Island in the San Juan Islands the first night, after lunching on the shore of nearby Waldron Island. In coming days they began to work their way north, with stops at Sidney, B.C., Nanaimo, Nanoose Harbor and Goose Spit, near Comox, where an unexpectedly high tide almost washed away their beach-camping site. (Roy later noted that, since they were sleeping on air mattresses, they might have drifted away without even being awakened.)
Continuing north through waters of British Columbia, still inside the protective wing of Vancouver Island, the boaters began to discover the hospitality of strangers. Local island residents appreciated the idea of a small-boat cruise to Alaska, even if some thought the outboarders were slightly nuts. Throughout the trip, the four were given free meals, fresh salmon, halibut, vegetables, warm showers and other tokens of appreciation.
Except for stretches of rough water and sporadic rain squalls, the first third of the trip was pure enjoyment. They camped and refueled at such places at Neville Bay, Quathiaski Cove, Port Hardy, Alert Bay, Safety Cove and Calvert Island, where they stayed in a cabin abandoned by surveyors.
Leaving the village of Bella Bella, now in the true Inside Passage north of Vancouver Island, the boaters spotted the remains of a passenger steamer, the North Sea, which had been abandoned after grounding on a reef during a snowstorm. Exploring the relic, Roy Harris retrieved a few souvenirs, including a menu from the vessel's last day at sea.
Continuing north, they alternately encountered rough water, heavy rain and bursts of glorious sun. They caught and cooked trout from a lake north of Klemtu; saw Orca whales and a basking shark; gassed-up at Butedale, B.C., and camped near the Hudson Bay Trading Post at Port Simpson, after pausing for a sit-down dinner in Prince Rupert.
Next came a scary part of the trip - the open-ocean crossing of Dixon Entrance, passing from northern British Columbia to Southeast Alaska and Ketchikan, where they would again enjoy relatively protected waters.
Pulling out of Port Simpson early on the morning of June 16, the two Reinells ran north about 10 miles before encountering dense fog. According to a journal kept by Roy Harris, "Jay shut down when we hit the fog, and we held a council of war. I was for continuing as we could, since we had a compass aboard our boat. So we set a course for the last lighthouse before the open-water crossing to Ketchikan, but after about 30 minutes ran into land. Too far east. So we pulled out about 30 degrees and continued. This was better and in due time the lighthouse loomed out of the mist. We were sure glad to see it, so we headed around the point in the fog, out into open water and in plenty of big rollers.
"We were in thick fog when we almost ran into a freighter which seemed to be heading toward Ketchikan, so we overhauled her, ran alongside, shot pictures and saw a porpoise playing in front of the steamer's bow.
"The fog got thicker and the steamer began blowing her whistle. We pulled alongside and hailed, asking where she was bound. "Ketchikan, by 12 o'clock," came the answer. Fine. We settled down to follow her in."
After the adventure in dense fog - which might have ended in calamity - Roy described Ketchikan as a "beautiful sight, with snow-covered mountains right back of the town and the docks lined with boats."
Having made it to their first Alaskan port, the foursome paused for a bit of luxury, staying at the Steadman Hotel, dining in the hotel restaurant, seeing a show, being interviewed by the two local papers, and sleeping late the next morning, "to get our money's worth at the hotel."
The run from Ketchikan to the next major port, Wrangell, was marked by choppy water, swift tides and the playful antics of porpoises, who surrounded Jay's boat, flipping their tails and sending about 10 gallons of seawater into the boat.
The boaters spotted their first icebergs between Wrangell and Petersburg, along with more rain, wind, chop and fog. Leaving Petersburg after gassing up and having lunch at the Pastime Cafe, they lost their way in the fog, pulled in behind an island and made up beds in their anchored boats, having soup and sandwiches for dinner.
The next day, June 20, they waited for the weather to clear before leaving for their northernmost destination, Juneau. "Easy going," Roy reported in his log. "We passed a glacier and saw numerous floating icebergs - deep blue, almost green." After bucking tides and nearly running out of gas, they finally arrived at the docks of Juneau, where they made up beds in the boats before walking into town for a late dinner.
"Juneau is rather dead," Roy reported the next day, after a walking tour. "The mine and mill are both closed down because of labor trouble."
One of the trip's highlights came next. "After Juneau, we planned to do Tracy Arm and Sawyer Glacier - a huge wall of ice that plunges into

the water south of Juneau," wrote Roy, "but in order to have enough fuel for the side trip into Tracy Arm we had to send an extra 20 gallons of gas down to Entrance Island on the mail boat, which delivers mail and freight to the prospectors, lighthouse keepers, fishermen and others who live in out-of-the-way places."
With the promise of extra fuel waiting at the entrance to Tracy Arm, the boaters left Juneau June 22. Immediately after entering the granite - walled fjord, they started to encounter icebergs- "more and more as we continued up the gorge," Roy wrote in his journal. "We slowed to pick a path through the bergs. It grew colder and, as we rounded a turn in the channel, the water seemed to be blocked by ice.
"I ran over one berg that was about 150 pounds and the boat shivered from stem to stern. I slipped when we hit and was ready to stop, but Jay wanted to push on. He drove slowly through the float ice, opening a channel, and I followed. Finally, we came out of the ice and into full view of the glacier."
Carving their way back through the ice floes, the adventurers overnighted in their boats at Harbor Island, where local residents insisted on giving them free halibut. That night, they heard what they thought was a loud thunderstorm...which turned out to be ice calving from the nearby glacier.
The next day they picked up the 20 gallons of gas at Entrance Island. Another school of porpoise doused Jay's boat with seawater - what was it about his boat, anyway? - and they paused on the way to Petersburg to watch as a humpback whale repeatedly dove and blew fountains of salty air over Frederick Sound.
Dining in Petersburg that evening, they met the owner of a floating logging camp, south of town in Wrangell Narrows, and the next day visited the watery community. The camp, reached only by boat, featured neatly-painted houses on floats, along with a floating church, school, cookhouse and garden. The loggers and their families would stay in one area for several months, or longer, moving as their company shifted from one logging area to another.
Several days later the Harrises and Caylors made their way through Ketchikan, across the open waters of Dixon Entrance to Prince Rupert - no fog this time, but extremely rough sea conditions - and enjoyed a restaurant meal, some magazines, candy bars and warm hotel-room beds.
Heading south from Prince Rupert, Caylor's Evinrude developed a loud knock. Harris towed the boat to a nearby logging camp, arriving 20 minutes before dinner, and they were invited to stay, enjoy dancing and music and repair their faulty motor. Two days later they left for Bella Bella; then Safety Cove (rough water again); then farther south to Alert Bay, Rock Bay and Yuculta Rapids.
Yuculta Rapids, north of Powell River, B.C., was an adventure by itself. The tide ran at up to 13 miles per hour through the pass, so the boaters waited for high water and nervously made the run, noticing dead fish in whirlpools as they shot through the rapids.
The remainder of the trip was relatively uneventful ("dodged oncoming logs running against the tide in Princess Louisa Inlet"), and mainly involved a series of notes about the dreary weather. ("Rained to beat hell...") The last night out they enjoyed a hotel room at Nanaimo before heading south July 9 through the Canadian Gulf Islands and U.S. San Juan Islands to Bellingham and home.
The trip took more than a month to complete. Actual recorded running time was 140 hours, and the two Evinrudes consumed 410 gallons of gas.
Roy, Everett, Jay and Dorothy were deeply tanned upon their return to Bellingham, and deeply impressed by the way their boats and motors handled the trip. (Harris went the distance-more than 2,000 miles-without losing a shear pin or damaging a prop. Caylor replaced a few shear pins and faced the one engine repair, but had more trouble with porpoises than with boats and motors.)
Everett Harris had been right - they could take their little boats to Alaska.
Postscript: Roy Harris water-skiied on his 71st birthday, behind the Reinell that had taken him to Alaska, but passed away in 1975. Everett Harris, 16 at the time of the Alaska trip, is a retired attorney living in Arizona, and the Caylors, now octogenarians, live in a retirement community in California.
Caylor's 18-foot Reinell, Skip, dropped out of sight years ago, but the author is currently restoring the Harris boat at his Seattle runabout-repair center, The Restoration Shop. Aleta will be displayed proudly at this summer's ACBS Northwest Annual Boat Show, July 31-August 1 on Lake Washington.

The Canadian Canoe Museum

In less than the two years since the Canadian Canoe Museum opened its first exhibits to the public, over 20,000 visitors have passed through the glass doors which open from Monaghan Road, one of the principle streets of Peterborough, Ontario. In the museum gallery visitors from across the world see only a fraction of the canoes, kayaks, dugouts and allied watercraft of the huge number contained in the collection centre warehouse behind the museum building. During the summer months it is possible for visitors to have a guided tour to view the total assemblage, in addition to those on display.

Housed in a building which was once the headquarters of the Outboard Marine Corporation, the Museum is gradually converting more and more areas to exhibition space. As a non-profit, educational institution, expansion occurs as funding becomes available. Recently, generous support from a private foundation has given the building a new roof, which will permit the opening of galleries on the second floor, more than doubling the existing space in the near future.

While the Museum looks to the expansion of its own facility, the staff has provided outreach exhibits in galleries across Canada this year. Currently displays from the Canadian Canoe Museum can be seen in the McMichael Art Gallery in Kleinberg, Ontario, in the Montreal Botanical Gardens, at Heritage Park in Calgary, Alberta, and closer to home in Lakefield, Ontario. Future outreach exhibits are being planned for Anchorage, Alaska and Saint John, New Brunswick. The staff also provides practical assistance to Sir Sandford Fleming College in their Museum Studies Programme, and will be assisting the Smithsonian Institution on a project of canoe relocation being undertaken in Washington, DC.

The active heart of the Museum is the workshop where volunteers can be seen learning to restore canoes to their original condition, or building storage racks fitted individually to each of the more than 600 craft. Other volunteers sometimes work in the galleries, demonstrating traditional skills such as carving paddles or the building of a birch bark canoe from its elemental components. In the conservation room a resident artist is painting voyageur murals to be hung in the education centre. Courses in canoe building, seat caning, soapstone carving and even map and compass reading are scheduled for the coming year.

An educational programme designed for different age groups is attracting organized tours by school classes. In October, the Museum was honoured by a visit from Ontario’s Lieutenant Governor Hilary Weston, marking the inauguration of this grogramme. She was greeted by three groups of children, each using a different language, Ojibway, French and English, representing the three founding people for which the canoe is a common heritage.

The Museum has been featured in an article in the New York Times, as well as in many Canadian newspapers, and most recently had a central place in Canoe Journal, the annual magazine of Canoe and Kayak. The museum is open daily from 10 AM to 4 PM, with the hours on winter weekends shortened to 1PM to 4 PM. For further information or direction you can call 705 748-9153 or check the website at http://www.canoemuseum.net

Morehouse Boats: A Brief History

by Duncan Remington and Dick Sherwood

Shortly after the turn of the century, George Morehouse was operating a summer restaurant in an old building known as the Wayne Pavilion. His business was on the west side of Cayuga Lake (the largest of the eleven Finger Lakes in upstate New York) and next to what is now Cayuga Lake State Park. It was not far from the village of Seneca Falls and a short distance from what was once advertised as the longest bridge in the USA – the mile-long planked toll bridge across the northern end of Cayuga Lake. According to his daughter, Betty, "he needed something to do during the winter" so he did odd carpentry jobs, some of which included the building of small boats. But it wasn’t until after he married Martine Christenson in 1909 that he seriously took up the study of boat design.

His first two boats were fairly unimpressive and conventional flat-bottomed, pointed craft with broad sterns, built in a garage near his home. Subsequently, he built and sold several boats, earning $25.00 for flat-bottomed designs and $35.00 for round-bottomed ones. Eventually, he established a boat livery next door to his pavilion restaurant and much of his boat production (up to twelve boats per year) was aimed at outfitting this new business. For several years, it was the restaurant that supported the boat business.

George and Martine had two sons; Richard (Dick), born in 1910 and Robert (Bob), born in 1919. By 1925 both boys were helping their father build 14-foot rowboats, boosting winter production to 25 boats per year. When Bob was graduated from high school in 1936, he joined his father and older brother in full-time boat-building, producing three models of boats and pushing production up to 50 craft per year. For several years their workshop was in the shore-side livery until they moved it into the basement of the Wayne Pavilion. In 1937 George officially named the boat-building operation the "Morehouse Boat Manufacturing Company".

George Morehouse died in 1941, leaving his business to his wife who had her two sons run the livery and boat-building operation while she ran the restaurant. World War II put serious boat-building on hold as Bob went into the service and Dick went to work on defense matters at the nearby Seneca Army Depot. The Depot’s proximity to Cayuga Lake did allow Dick to oversee the continued production of some small boats during the war.

Across the road from the Wayne Pavilion was the Grandview Pavilion that was built in 1927-28 by George Morehouse as a dance hall and used as a roller-skating rink in the 1940’s. When the war was over and Bob Morehouse returned to Cayuga Lake, he and Dick converted the Grandview into the new home of the Morehouse Boat Manufacturing Company. They hired eight skilled workers and began turning out rowboats, outboard boats and sailboats in quantity.

Boat construction was fairly conventional. Rowboats were planked with red cedar, while outboards were usually planked with cedar below the splash-rails and mahogany above. Planking was screw-fastened to steam-bent white oak frames on four to six inch centers. Sometime in the early 1950’s Morehouse invested in a large shaper and planking was changed from conventional carvel to bead-and-cove, saving significant labor time. Transoms, decks and seats were made from mahogany. Sailboat frames and masts were made from spruce, while planking was cedar. Sales materials emphasized the use of modern rubber sealant versus old-fashioned caulking between planks. Red cedar was freighted into Seneca Falls by rail and barges from Washington and Oregon, and Philippine mahogany was shipped north by importers located in New Jersey. White oak was found locally. The Finger Lakes Paint Co. in Phelps, NY, custom-made paints and varnishes. Brass fittings were cast-to-order by Clifford Parker, a retired Goulds Pump Co. pattern maker. Knight’s Letter Works of Seneca Falls custom-cast aluminum fittings and nameplates.

Except for the war years, the Company built Comet and Lightning Sailboats from 1941 to 1951. wherever they went, Morehouse sailboats were recognized as formidable competition. Morehouse Comets won Central New York State Championships for five years in a row, and one took a second place in national competition.

With sailboat sales on the decline in 1947, Morehouse began work on an inboard utility design. In 1950 two sizes of inboards were introduced, 18-foot and 20-foot models, with construction similar to that of the outboards. Power for inboards was provided by Chris-Craft (Hercules) engines, normally the 95 horsepower six cylinder versions, although a few four cylinder engines were also used. One unique 22-foot inboard was built on special order for Phil Westcott Sr., owner of the Westcott Rule Co., Inc. of Seneca Falls. It was configured with two cockpits (seats) forward, a utility layout aft and was powered by a 145 hp Chris-Craft six. (This unusual craft is still in the Cayuga Lake area awaiting hull repair after colliding with an unlighted buoy.) A total of 39 inboards were built between 1947 and 1960, and they developed a reputation as safe, comfortable boats for fishing and family fun.

The peak year of Morehouse boat production was 1956, with 300 boats (one per workday with a labor force of eight) coming out of the shop. Sizes ranged from 12 to 20 feet with the 14-foot rowboat still one of the most popular boats produced. Although Morehouse boats became well known in central New York State, buyers also came from throughout the Northeast, the Great Lakes region, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. Other than the factory on Cayuga Lake, the Hutchinson Boat Works in Alexandria Bay, NY became the only dealer for Morehouse Boats. This arrangement evolved solely because the Thousand Islands region of the St. Lawrence River was a favorite fishing area of the Morehouse brothers.

The mid-fifties saw the introduction of fiberglass and aluminum in small craft hull designs, making the high labor content of planked construction unacceptably expensive. In an attempt to remain competitive, the Company imported some rough-molded birch hulls from Canada for finishing (adding decks and trim) at the Morehouse shop. But this move only staved off the inevitable for a short time, and in 1961 Morehouse boat production was discontinued. The Company remained in operation selling and servicing boats and motors of several manufacturers until 1978 when the doors were closed for the last time. In the meantime Dick Morehouse had left the Company in 1967 to pursue other interests. He passed away in 1982. Bob Morehouse died in 1988.

Over the years several hundred Morehouse boats were built. A few remain, mostly in upstate New York. Of the 39 inboards built, seven are known to have been destroyed, but at least 21 others still exist. Some of the jigs and fixtures used in boat production have been donated to the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, NY. The others remain in the hands of the Morehouse family. As for the three original Company buildings, the livery was demolished several years ago, the manufacturing plant (the dance hall) was razed in 1993 and the showroom is now owned by the New York State Department of Parks and Recreation.

The last Morehouse boat was built in the 1970’s long after regular production had ceased. It was,fittingly, like the first – a flat-bottomed craft. This heavy duty workboat, framed in oak and planked with mahogany plywood, was bought by the State of New York along with other Morehouse properties that became a part of Cayuga Lake State Park. The boat is stored in a barn on those grounds today.

(Special thanks to George Zeth, grandson of George Morehouse, for his help in researching this article.)

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