An Examination of the Traditional Essex Clam Skiff: Potential Origins of the Craft and Documented Uses on the Essex River

By Justin Demetri Essex Shipbuilding Museum Essex Massachusetts Winter 2018

A surviving Essex Clam Skiff, currently in possession of the Essex Shipbuilding Museum is being examined and replicated by local High School students. Small boats of this type have been used on the Essex (formerly Chebacco) River, and the larger Great Marsh area for an indeterminate amount of time. Watercraft of this type have been used for work and pleasure, have been rowed, sailed and eventually motor driven. As the name suggests, these small craft are mostly identified with the local clam industry, a staple of life in Essex since the early days of settlement. Whether for cod bait or for food, the digging of clams by the inhabitants of Essex is a core life-way that continues today, albeit in modern small boats.

The traditional dories, wherries and skiffs have been superseded and in the case of the Essex Clam Skiff are functionally extinct, with our example possibly being the last with documented use. As these once ubiquitous boats have disappeared from the Essex River, we also face the loss of knowledge of how they were built and used, as they fade from living memory.

The Essex Historical Society and Shipbuilding Museum has taken the role of documenting this rare example of local small boatbuilding before it is too late. Using our extant craft, on loan from the family of Essex shipbuilder Harold Burnham, our team of students are making detailed plans and building a replica Clam Skiff under the guidance of instructors Mark Webster and Jeff Lane. This work is coinciding with historical research, using the resources of ESM Archives which consists of surviving plans and numerous photos. Most critically, oral histories will be recorded from those with experience using these Clam Skiffs and the traditional clam baskets.

As we delve into this research, it is important to note that the Essex Clam Skiff is most likely a product of a local folk industry, with little to no official documentation. Like any so-called folk tradition, there can be expected a certain degree of deviation in any particular craft, from what would be considered the “true” form. That is, if such a thing actually existed. It is expected that instead of finding an archetype for the Clam Skiff, the evidence may show more of a spectrum of designs and shapes that share important characteristics. It is a local example of the various small craft historically used along the New England and Canadian coast.

Our example shows a shape and construction pattern that may put the boat along an evolutionary spectrum between historic New England dory types and relatively modern small boats like the Amesbury Skiff. Craft of this type, with a dory-like shape and construction, but with a flat transom instead of the classic “tombstone” were often known as “dory skiffs” or less often “skiff dories” “The boats most often used by the north shore clammers are called "skiff dories," and in construction are between a dory and a skiff. These boats are especially adapted for use in rivers.”1

The history of dory and skiff construction is not well documented, as is true for much of traditional small boat building. However, much of the accepted history of these related craft was documented by John Gardner in his seminal work “The Dory Book.” Although Gardner does not address the Essex Clam Skiff specifically, his work points our research in the right direction by identifying the similarities in shape and construction and possible origins. Gardner also includes various dory and skiff plans in the book, one of which is very similar to our Clam Skiff, built by Hiram Lowell and used on the Essex River in the 1950’s.

Using Gardner’s work as a foundation, supplemented by plans, photos and documents in the Essex Shipbuilding Museum Archives, this report will attempt to document the origins and documented use of the Essex clam skiff.

Potential Origins - Early History

Skiffs of this type, along with related designs are part of the larger and older dory tradition that most likely originates in European medieval small boat construction. Brought to a new world these various dories, wherries and skiffs were adapted to local conditions, over time creating designs, some of which, are still familiar today.

An important fact that Gardner brings out is that the shapes of dories and skiffs are probably older than the craft we know today. Similar designs can be seen in late medieval/early modern artwork from at least the 15th century.

A sketch from Albrecht Durer basically shows a dory, while another sketch from Peter Bruegel the Elder shows two fishermen standing on what could pass for an Amesbury Skiff. The woodcut prints in Breydenbach’s Journey To The Holy Land, from 1486 show small craft with familiar dory and skiff shapes.

It can be assumed by these, and other examples, that boat shapes now identified as dories and skiffs, had been well established in Europe by this time. However it is not the shape alone that sets dories, skiffs and all their variants apart from other small craft. What makes a dory and its relatives is the type of construction, most notably the use of wide boards, which were only readily available after the adoption of water-powered sawmills2.

When European technology allowed for the use of wide boards in construction, they were adapted to pre-existing boat shapes. Double-ended designs, which tend to be better in following seas and beach launchings, were the precursors to the American dories, while the flat sterned vessels, better for rivers

1 Massachusetts. Commissioners on Fisheries and Game. (1909). A report upon the mollusk fisheries of Massachusetts.

2 Gardner pp.14-15 and estuaries, became dory skiffs, and even later, motorized semi-dories and modern skiffs3. With this in mind, boat shapes can change to suit local conditions or preferences, but how they are built essentially remains the same. Identical construction methods, combined with slight variations in design can also lead to an array of local names for what are very similar craft.

Wherries

What we today identify as a dory type in North America, was originally called a wherry, at least when it comes to the work of the famous Lowell family in Amesbury (formerly Salisbury), Massachusetts. What they originally looked like is of minor importance, but from this starting point we eventually get various small craft that became known as dories (Surf dories, shore dories, Swampscott dories, banks dories, etc..) with each variation designed for various uses. Meanwhile the concept of a wherry will change in the 19th century into a craft that seems to bridge the gap between our modern concepts of dories and skiffs.

“The wherry and the dory co-evolved, their similarities the result of their construction, their differences the result of use.”4

Regardless of what they actually looked like at any particular time, wherries have a long history of use along the New England coast. Documents from the late 18th and through the 19th century often refer to wherries when describing small craft used for shore fishing or clam digging:

“Philip Lord jr. Thomas Lord, Josiah Lord, Isaac Galloway, drowned crossing Plum Island River in wherry on a Clamming Voige Sept 12, 1785.”5

“When the tide is out, on pleasant winter days, one will often see gangs of ten, twenty or fifty men and boys busily employed in turning up the mud on the flats and picking up the clams into buckets. The implement which they use is a stout fork with three flat prongs, each about an inch wide and ten or twelve inches long. The men go out on to the flats, in wherries, when the tide is retiring, and push an oar into the mud, and make fast the boat to it, and as soon as the water has left the boat, commence operations. When a bucket is filled, it is emptied into the boat. They continue their work until the tide comes in again sufficiently to float the boat, when they pull to the wharf.” Noted maritime historian and model maker, Erik Ronnberg Jr. states that in the mid-19th century the wherry seems to have branched off the dory tradition into a craft with a wider transom as evidenced by the paintings of Fitz Henry Lane:

3 Although we generally think of skiffs as flat bottomed, early skiffs were not always so. Gardner states that “skiff” simply meant a light-built craft.

4 Erik Ronnberg Jr. from Fitz Henry Online

5 Antiquarian Papers of Ipswich vol 1-4 “By the time Lane was depicting wherries, the type (as used for fishing) resembled a larger, wider version of a dory. The extra width was due to greater bottom width (both types had flat bottoms), with a wider transom at the stern instead of the narrow, v-shaped “tombstone.”6

In the late 19th and into the 20th century the term wherry seems to drop out of favor and the “dory skiff” seems to replace it. Whether these are the same types of craft is difficult to say, however they must have been similar due to nearly identical construction methods.

The Design of the Clam Skiff

A dory-skiff is 16 to 20 feet in length and combines some of the characteristics of a dory and skiff. It is flat bottomed with straight side planking of fair sheer, a dory bow, and a skiff stern. This combination gives the boat the forward riding ability of a dory, but eliminates the unsteadiness; it provides a larger capacity and a convenient arrangement for an outboard motor attachment. The disadvantages are that it is heavy and difficult to handle in a wind, because the bow, being higher out of the water than the stern, catches the full effect of the wind and tends to turn the boat broadside. This makes the boat susceptible to swamping, especially when landing on or taking off from the beach in a moderate wind and swell. A dory-skiff is not satisfactory for use in exposed waters where strong winds and heavy swells are frequent. U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. (1942). Hydrographic manual. Rev.(1942) ed Washington: U. S. Govt. Print. Off..

Elements of Construction Our Clam Skiff shares construction elements with the various dory types that are either in our collection or have been built in our shipyard.

The Clam Skiff’s Role in the Essex Clamming Industry

Outfit of a Clammer. — The outfit of a clammer does not require much outlay of capital. A skiff or dory, one or two clam hoes and three or four clam baskets complete the list. Occasionally, as at Ipswich, where the clam grounds are widely scattered, power dories are used, and this necessitates the investment of considerable capital; but the investment of the average clammer does not exceed $26. Personal apparel, such as oilskins and boots, are not considered under this head. Clamming Outfit. Skiff dory, $22 00 Two clam diggers, 1 50 Four clam baskets, 2 00 Total, $25 50

6 Erik Ronnberg Jr. from Fitz Henry Online The boats most often used by the north shore clammers are called "skiff dories," and in construction are between a dory and a skiff. These boats are especially adapted for use in rivers. Source: Massachusetts. Commissioners on Fisheries and Game. (1909). A report upon the mollusk fisheries of Massachusetts. Boston: Wright & Potter printing co., state printers.

Conclusion To paraphrase Gardner, the Essex Clam Skiff is a local type of “the familiar dory skiff of which so many variations were once popular as rowboats along the New England shore before the outboard motor.”7

Sources:

Massachusetts. Commissioners on Fisheries and Game. (1909). A report upon the mollusk fisheries of Massachusetts. Boston: Wright & Potter printing co., state printers.

Reynolds, J. d. 1872. (1856). Peter Gott, the Cape Ann fisherman. Boston: J. P. Jewett & company

Erik Ronnberg Jr.:Small Craft – Wherries, and Dories from Fitz Henry Online: http:// fitzhenrylaneonline.org/historical_material/?type=Vessel+Types§ion=Small+Craft+ %E2%80%93+Wherries%2C+and+Dories&ref=catalog:225

Antiquarian Papers of Ipswich vol 1-4

7 Gardner: The Dory Book p 29