2012 Cape Ann Guide – Experience Cape Ann…serving Essex, Gloucester, Manchester-by-the-Sea and Rockport. Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce.
Issue link: http://capeannguide.epubxp.com/i/133875
ON THE WATER & BOATING CAPE ANN On the Water Spotlight Cape Ann's Shipbuilding Tradition M "Master shipwright, designer and mariner Harold Burnham is part of a shipbuilding tradition that dates back to the 1630s in the small town of Essex, Massachusetts, where the Burnhams have lived for 11 generations." So begins the tribute given to Essex shipbuilder Harold Burnham when he was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Heritage Fellowship in 2012. The NEA continues: "Over the last 400 years the town of Essex has produced more than 4,000 ships, largely for the Gloucester fishing fleet. After World War II, heavily constructed wooden vessels (employing sawn frames and trunnel or tree-nail fastenings) became a thing of the past. This changed, however, in 1996 when Burnham skillfully revived the long-dormant Essex techniques and traditions to build the authentic 65-foot Gloucester schooner Thomas E. Lannon. Launched in 1997, the Lannon quickly became an iconic vessel, built for cultural tourism, and it led to several other commissions for historic watercrafts. Burnham Boat Building is currently the only shipyard in the country that regularly designs and builds sawn frame and trunnel fasten vessels." 46 The area today known as Essex was first settled by English colonists in 1634, as part of the township of Ipswich. In its early years it was known as Chebacco Parish and was incorporated as the town of Essex in 1819. As memorialized on the historic marker near the Essex Shipbuilding Museum, by 1668 shipbuilding in this settlement had already become so prevalent that the town granted the acre of land in this area "to the inhabitants of the town for a yard to build vessels and to employ workmen to that end". For the next 300 years the building of wooden vessels in Chebacco Parish and later Essex expanded and continued without interruption, with more than 4,000 boats and ships constructed along the banks of the tidal Essex River. Until Harold Burnham revived the Essex shipbuilding tradition and techniques with the Schooner Lannon in 1997, the last schooner to be built and launched in Essex was the Eugenia J., a 55 foot schooner yacht built by Jonathan Story at the Oliver Burnham yard and launched in June of 1949. Cape Ann Guide 2013 ~ Essex, Gloucester, Manchester-by-the-Sea, and Rockport