1 9 4 8 2 0 0 9 1 9 4 8 2 0 0 9

Non-profit Org. U.S. Postage N E W S L E T T E R PAID PSMHS Seattle WA A P R I L N E W S L E T T E R Permit No. 349 APRIL 2009 • dated material PSMHS Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society please deliver dinner meeting: Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society • April 2009 promptly P.O. Box 9731 wednesday

Seattle WA 98109-0731 april 1, 2009

swedish cultural center APRIL DINNER PROGRAM: 1920 dexter avenue north April Dinner Program: LIGHTHOUSES AND LIFE SAVING seattle, washington

ON WASHINGTON’S OUTER COAST menu: pork chops Lighthouses & Life Saving on use form on page 3 Washington’s Outer Coast don’t forget to make your to mail in your Our outer coastal area has long been called “The Graveyard of the reservations early! reservation TODAY! Pacific” and “The Unforgiving Coast” for very good reason. Between the • treacherous entrance of the Columbia River at the south to the lack of bar opens at 6:00 p.m. frequent easy-to-enter safe harbors along the coast up to the often wild dinner at 7:00 p.m. waters at the opening of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, ships have encountered • PROUD SPONSORS AND SUPPORTERS OF PSMHS trouble and lives have been in jeopardy. program: To provide warnings and protect the vessels, their crews, passengers COASTAL SENTINELS AND and cargos, the federal government established the US Lighthouse Service HEROS: LIGHTHOUSES in 1790 and gave that organization life saving responsibilities. The Cape Disappointment Lighthouse was first lit in 1856, followed PSMHS Classified Ads AND LIFE SAVING ON Annual Maritime Career Day To Be Held On May 7 WASHINGTON’S OUTER COAST by North Head and Gray’s Harbor in 1898. The first Pacific Coast Life Saving Station was opened at Willapa Bay in 1877. SHIP MODEL RESTORATION. The Maritime Event Center, formerly the Odyssey Maritime historian and author Cleaning, repairs, re-rigging, and/or recon- Our April speaker, Dr. William Hanable first became interested in Discovery Center, is proud to present the 11th Annual Maritime dr. william hanable will struction of ship models in any condition or Career Day in conjunction with the Maritime Festival on Thursday, lighthouses while working as a historian in Alaska. He moved to Washing- size. Thirty-five years experience in res- speak the praise of our toration, appraisals, and conservation. For a May 7, 2009, from 8:30 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. ton in 1994 to become director of the Westport Maritime Museum, which museum quality restoration contact Gary lighthouses and life saving White, The Ship Model Dockyard, 253- This event provides a unique opportunity to take a glimpse into the is located in the former Coast Guard Life Boat Station. While there, he stations along the so-called 952-4612 or [email protected] 4/09 working world of trade, transportation, fisheries, government and developed interpretive tours at Gray’s Harbor Lighthouse and curated a career training. Step aboard and explore working vessels, speak with graveyard of the pacific new exhibit on Lighthouse Service and Life Saving Service history in the BOOKS BOUGHT AND SOLD. Ma- • rine, maritime, nautical, naval books and industry representatives, and sit in on our Maritime Speaker Series. Westport area. ephemera bought, sold and appraised. This opportunity is offered FREE of charge. The Maritime Event your reservation form Bill Hanable is currently managing director of Northwest Heritage Mention PSMHS for a 10% discount. must be received SeaOceanBooks.com at 3534 Stone Way Center is located at Pier 66, 2205 Alaskan Way. For more information Consultants, which provides historic preservation, museum planning and North, Seattle. 206-675-9020. 2/10 visit www.MaritimeEventCenter.com. not later than noon on grant writing services. His most recent achievement is a new Arcadia book, monday, march 30, 2009 Lighthouses and Lifesaving on Washington’s Outer Coast. He will bring the TO SUBMIT AN AD. Make a $3.00 per month donation to PSMHS and send to YMTA Receives Nine Applications for Scholarships or call pat hartle book, its many historical images and some amazing feats of heroism to life PSMHS Newsletter Editor,Classified Ads, at 206-938-2397 for as he presents our April dinner program. We will be meeting at the Swedish P.O. Box 9731, Seattle WA 98109-0731. YMTA received nine applications from Washington State seniors for the 2009 Norm Manly YMTA Maritime Educational and Pacific Maritime more information and Cultural Center on Wednesday, April 1. Please make sure to make your Magazine Scholarships. All nine have been invited to present an oral reservation changes only reservations by using the coupon printed on Page 3. As a added plus, we presentation on “Charting a Maritime Career” to a panel of judges on • will present each person attending with our special Puget Sound Maritime Saturday April 18, 2009, in Seattle at the Maritime Event Center. Historical Society lapel pin. P S M H S o n l i n e : w w w . p u g e t m a r i t i m e . o r g d e d i c a t e d t o p! r e s e r v i n g a n d d i s p l a y i n g t h e n o r t h w e s t m a r i t i m e p a s t d e d i c a t e d t o p r e s e r v i n g a n d d i s p l a y i n g t h e n o r t h w e s t m a r i t i m e p a s t 1 9 4 8 2 0 0 9 1 9 4 8 2 0 0 9

PSMHS Curator is A Key Part of WAWONA PSMHS PSMHS N E W S L E T T E R Documentation and Deconstruction Membership Application Dinner Meeting Reservation PSMHS After a 45-year-long effort to save Seattle’s last tall ship, the 112 year- Individual/Family Membership ! $40 CLIP AND MAIL FOR MEETING Membership in the Puget Sound Maritime Historical old Pacific schooner WAWONA took her final voyage on March 4—a Society is open to anyone interested in maritime Associate (Libraries, Museum, Non-Profit) ! $40 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1, 2009 history. Membership is solicited and inquires should quarter of a mile from Lake Union Park to Lake Union Drydock (LUDD) Sustaining Member ! $50 RESERVATION DEADLINE: be addressed to: PSMHS, P.O. Box 9731, Seattle WA where she is now being deconstructed. As this last vestige of an era slips 98109-0731. Monthly meetings are held September Sponsor ! $75 NOON ON MONDAY, MARCH 30, 2009 through June on the first Wednesday of each month. away, PSMHS Administrator and Curator Nathaniel Howe has been Patron ! $100 Name(s): Meeting place and programs are announced to members helping preserve this vital part of Pacific Northwest maritime history. by mail. The PSMHS Newsletter is published monthly, Corporate Membership ! $500 September through June, and is free to members. For more than a year Howe has been splitting his time with Northwest Benefactor ! $500 Seaport to work as their Vessel Documentation and Preservation Specialist. Puget Sound Navigator ! $1000 Telephone: The young Seattle native, sailor and maritime preservationist has directed Maritime Historical Society Work(ed) for a Matching Gift Company! Total Number [at $30 per person]: 206-624-3028 the documentation of the ship, the artifact preservation plan, and has been Total Amount of Check: involved in virtually all the project’s complex planning negotiations. Name(s) Address President: Chuck Fowler Captivated by WAWONA as a child, Howe built a model of the ship MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO: PSMHS 360-705-3060 at age eleven when he joined the Society and was a member of the City State Zip MAIL TO: 1st Vice President: Discovery Ship Modelers program. By the time he was in high school Telephone (H) (W) PSMHS MEETING, Roger Ottenbach Howe was determined to enter the maritime museum field and help E-mail P.O. BOX 9731, SEATTLE, WA, 98109-0731 2nd Vice President: restore WAWONA to her former glory. Sponsor (if any) Call 206-938-2397 for changes, cancellations or questions. Leon Gessula However, after studying and working at Beloit College, Mystic Guests are always welcome. Please include payment. Treasurer: ! I/we would like to receive information about how I/we can Reserve Early and Notify of Cancellation. A member who makes Seaport, and the Vasa Museum in Sweden while on a Fulbright Scholar- remember the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society in a reservation and then does not attend a dinner or give notifica- Johnnie Ridgway ship, and the Fregatten Jylland Museum in Denmark, all his training only my/our estate planning or planned charitable giving program. tion of their cancellation in a timely manner (48 hours) will not Recording/Membership showed him that WAWONA was beyond hope. Rot was rapidly consum- be refunded their money for the dinner. The Society must pay for Secretary: MAIL TO: Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society, the number of meals we have reserved in advance, regardless of the ing the entire ship and to restore her would require more than $20 million number of meals actually served since the caterer orders several Dan Withers P.O. Box 9731, Seattle WA 98109-0731 (Include your check) days in advance. Walk-ins cannot be guaranteed a meal. Board of Governors: and replacement of almost every timber and plank. Jerry Mattox Yet Northwest Seaport and Howe recognized that the ship still had a Some of these items will go on exhibit in MOHAI’s which honored 51 members between 1949 and 1999. Jackie Schwartz lot to offer. Refocusing on WAWONA’s deconstruction as an unparal- Tom Kane leled research opportunity, Howe was hired in 2007 to direct the archaeo- new armory museum at Lake Union Park and its A single winner for 2009 will be selected by an John Hough logical documentation of the ship and record how it was built. Even Maritime Gallery, as will other artifacts and materials anonymous selection committee. Nominations should Tim Beaver though the ship could not be preserved intact, it would at least be saved on from both the PSMHS and MOHAI maritime collec- state why the nominee should receive this prestigious Lisa Haug paper, through photographs and in a computer database. tions. The new museum is scheduled to open in 2012, award. All nominations will be kept confidential, known Past President: In early 2008 Howe used his contacts at the Vasa Museum and East and showcasing WAWONA’s saved artifacts will be a only to the judges and the Award Committee. Past George Osborn Carolina University to help bring out a team of six graduate students and fitting tribute to the proud schooner’s colorful past. recipients of the Honorary Life Member and Medal of one professor from the university’s Nautical Archaeology program to Merit awards are not eligible. Administrator & Archivist: carefully measure and record WAWONA’s structural framing. The two- Medal of Merit Nominations Sought Nominations can be e-mailed to the Award Nathaniel Howe week project uncovered countless details never before observed; a row of At our May 6th dinner meeting the Society will Committee Co-Chairmen: George Osborn at hidden compartments along the top of the keelsons, crew signatures honor an individual who has made major contribu- [email protected], or Jerry Mattox at Newsletter Editor: carved into the deck beams, and the use of English-dimension lumber to tions to the preservation and promotion of the mari- [email protected] or mailed to George Osborn, Larry Henderson build a ship laid out on a metric plan. Since then Howe has completed a time history of Puget Sound, or has rendered distin- 3823 N. Frace Avenue, Tacoma, Washington 98407. MAY NEWSLETTER DEADLINE guished service to PSMHS. Nominations must be received by 8:00 A.M. on April 6, APRIL 1, 2009 record of the ship’s structural details. 2009, if e-mailed. If mailed postmarked no later than fax: 206-324-2638 As the ship is deconstructed at LUDD, Howe will be on site supervis- The award, known as the “PSMHS Maritime Heri- April 4, 2009. e-mail: [email protected] ing the removal of important structural timbers selected for preservation tage Medal of Merit,” was first presented in 2008 and US mail: PSMHS as well as the rudder, wheel, and cabin interiors. More than 300 other recognized the Society’s five founders. It replaces the CORRECTION: New members from last issue should fittings and artifacts have already been extracted from the ship. " Society’s earlier “Honorary Life Member” award program read “Lisa Haug and Amado Shuck.” We apologize.

2 • p u g e t s o u n d m a r i t i m e h i s t o r i c a l s o c i e t y p u g e t s o u n d m a r i t i m e h i s t o r i c a l s o c i e t y • 3