The Charles River Canoeist

Benson Gray

Canoe History Enthusiast
Staff member
Bill Conrad kindly shared a microfilm with 22 issues of the Charles River Canoeist from 1901. These offer some interesting insights about how popular canoes were in this area at that time. About 30,000 people would visit Norumbega Park on a peak day and there were an estimated 5000 canoes housed in that area. J. R. Robertson and Waltham had large advertisements along with Spaulding & St. Lawrence from New York and for "The Spinney Pole." The classifieds mention Robertson, Gerrish, and Nutting canoes along with a help wanted advertisement from the Mather Launch & Canoe Co. for "Five or six A1 canvas canoe builders." The articles included a mention that "the canoes this year are painted in a great variety of colorings" along with a description of the Hurry Scurry race format and some glowing comments about C. B. Robertson (although I might not have bragged about nearly drowning three times). Fun stuff,

Benson


30000-people.jpg C-B-Robertson.jpg Colors.jpg CRC-1-3-classifieds.jpg CRC-1-3-cover.jpg Flag-pole.jpg Hurry-Scurry-Race.jpg J-R-Robertson.jpg Spaulding-St-Lawrence.jpg Waltham.jpg
 
Would there be any plans to scan these into a marketable format? I'm not sure how copyright issues would apply...
 
These are well outside of copyright protection but the microfilms were made by Harvard from originals in the Boston Athenæum's collection so one of them might be concerned if the WCHA or anyone else started selling them. Contact me privately if you want more details. Thanks,

Benson
 
Back
Top