Trips -N - Ships

I grew up down the Fort, my family still lives there, Christmas is second to Fiesta - need I say more?

The hotel is a mistake and just the latest example of the “nobody at the wheel” mentality of Gloucester. Everything is a knee-jerk reaction that comes back to bite us in the ass later on. The ridiculous curbs on Main Street, the rearranging of traffic lights, the sewer system fiascos both past and present and now the old boys network of certain banks and businessmen that shall remain nameless have set their sights on one of the last enclaves of real Gloucester waterfront.

Without thought to the people living there, certain names in this area can get away with anything - just ask me about the brewery…

The hotel will be placed on a strip of land that today is dedicated to fishing - what will the busloads of tourists think of that smell? And then there is Fiesta, unless this is a scheme to move Fiesta too - the tourists love it, but how will they get to the hotel? With the current economic crisis, will there be any tourists at all?

Everyone knows where the hotel should go - on that big empty lot by the Building Center. Yet another debacle caused by ineptitude in city government. Don’t believe that Gloucester and the Fort does not want to change, we just believe these changes have to be done smartly.

Our Special Holiday Sale Benefits You and Supports the

We have big plans coming up for the museum and so we will be doing work on the store this winter and restocking in the spring. So to get rid of inventory, over the next three weekends we will be having a special Holiday Sale at the Museum’s store.

Our Holiday Sale will be running the following days:

Amazing deals on favorites such as:

Lewis Story T-shirts Pirate ships, key chains, most books, postcards, hats, and much more on sale!

Frame Up! T-shirts. Long sleeve adult sizes and short sleeve youth sizes.

Come buy your holiday gifts or stocking stuffers. Not in a shopping mood? Take a guided tour of the museum, visit the historic shipyard or just stop by and say “Hi!”We’re serving hot cider to warm you and all sorts of home made goodies to satisfy your sweet tooth.

A small group of researchers and filmakers arrived at the Essex Shipbuilding Museum yesterday to do get some footage for an up and coming documentary. Andy, Chris and Matt -3 shellfishermen/film makers from Chatham, MA are working on a film about the Lady Washington, a very historically important vessel that may have been built in old Essex (Chebacco) in the 1740’s.

Our records are very limited from that period and the fact that we don’t know what the original name of the vessel was (it could not be Washington), it would be very difficult to verify. However it is pretty certain that the vessel, originally a 90 ton (burden) colonial sloop, was built in a setting like Essex. The guys took some great footage of our basin and creek, which holds our 18th century replica Chebacco boat: Lewis H. Story. Shipwright Harold Burnham, who has taught me quite a lot in a short time, allowed us to visit the Burnham Boatbuilding yard and to film his Pinky schooner Maine.

The vessel had quite a life - a colonial trader typical of her time, she must have had a good turn of speed since she was renamed Washington and became a revolutionary privateer. Later she was renamed Lady Washington and became the tender vessel for the Columbia Rediviva - the first American vessel to round Cape Horn and explore the Columbia river. Later re-rigged as a brig, which would probably make her easier to sail, she became the first American vessel to visit Hawaii, Japan and Hong Kong.

Her life ended I believe sometime in the 1820’s in the Phillipines after hitting a river bar and breaking up -quite a long life for a wooden vessel.