Dec 04 2008
Documentary Filming at ESM
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.
