A Few Words from the Expert

What's a nice guy like me...... etc.?

Photo of Ken Several years ago I stumbled upon an article in The Small Boat Journal about Jack Hazzard who built a canoe of paper. I also saw some articles in Wooden Canoe, published by the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association, about paper canoes and I ran into one of the WCHA members, Walter Fullam. Walter exhibited a boundless enthusiasm for the subject and offered me encouragement when I showed even a slight amount of interest. He had even built canoes from newspaper and wallpaper paste!

It seemed like such an entertaining idea that I decided to try it myself with acceptable success (perhaps because I used more robust materials. (I still, in 2008, have the paper/epoxy canoe and take it for the occasional paddle).

I also did a little research on the subject and discovered that the leading 19th century paper boat firm of Waters & Sons was located in not-so-far-off Troy, NY (I'm in Rochester, NY). My engineering background seemed to mesh with the subject and it was a downhill slope from there on. The subject became a minor, (but at all times healthy, I would like to add) obsession.

During the next several years I made several trips from Rochester to Troy, spent a couple of days in the Library of Congress (this was before the internet..... you actually had to go there to search the catalog. (It's a lot easier today), consulted with new-found acquaintances at the Dard Hunter Paper Museum (then in Appleton, Wisconsin; now incorporated into a museum in Atlanta... see "links"), and made a lot of use of my local public library, (which has a nice collection of 19th century periodicals and helpful librarians).

Unfortunately, while I think I know as much as anyone on the subject, (OK, I really think I know more than anybody) the record is still incomplete as:

I was unable to find any cache of Waters family or business records. This is particularly painful as George Waters was an amateur photographer and one can imagine boxes of glass plate negatives that disappeared over the years.
Few paper boat hulls remain; only one rowboat and three rowing shells that I have been able to locate. (If anyone knows of or finds one let me know!!)
Rowing history is well documented. The history of rowing shell construction and technology is not, or at least I've not found the right archive.
So while I claim to be the world's expert on 19th century paper boats, I admit it's an easy post to attain, as I've yet to find anyone particularly interested. Most paper historians seem to center around watermarks, the printed page, art papers, and other lofty subjects. Paper folk seem almost embarrassed by the thought of practical items like paper boats, flower pots, coffins, and railroad car wheels being a noble technology in the 19th century.

For several years I published "The Paper Boater" in hopes of finding more information from a network of readers. This was a 2-4 page desktop publishing effort and I regularly sent out about 100-125 issues, particularly when we'd be noted in the "respectable" press (e.g. kind words by Peter Specter in "On the Waterfront" in Wooden Boat ). The exercise yielded lots of nice letters, a lot of interesting information and memories, and a lot of fun, but little historical information. So..... running out of material and feeling the need to move on, I moved on. But I've had this pile of information sitting in my home office, so what would be more appropriate than to have the subject resurface here on the internet.

This was partially inspired by finding a self-teaching tutorial on web pages from Maricopa Community College in Arizona. After wading through these lessons, what could be more obvious than doing a "Paper Boater" web page? So here we are. The results are clearly an exercise aimed more at substance than style.

I finally retired from my "day job" (systems engineering for aerospace imaging systems) in the autumn of 2005. So, I've got some time to push this to the next level! There is a problem, however! I've pretty well exhausted the information that seems to be readily available and the leads I've been following have pretty much been dead-ends. If you have some information or insights to add to the story of boats or other 19th century paper items, please email me.

You'll find me as "kcupery" at the service "netacc (you know what) net" (and you know to use "." for "you know what"?) Sorry for the inconvenience, but this is a probably futile attempt at decreasing spam by trying to outwit address harvesting software.

If you'd like a bit more information I'd be happy to provide it and I thrive on even modest amounts of encouragement!

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