The
Chebacco style schooner Lewis H. Story is
the flagship of the Essex
Shipbuilding Museum in Essex, Massachusetts. Built at the museum
of wood construction by Harold Burnham for the museum in the year
2000, the Story represents a type of fishing schooner that was once
a favored design in Essex during the early 19th century. The schooner
is named for Lewis L. Story, an historian of the early ship building
industry in town.
The
Essex Ship Building Museum is housed in the former A.D. Story Yard
and is part of the Essex Historical Society. Many famous schooners
including the Columbia, Gertrude L. Thebeaud, and
the Carry L. Phillips were built here. Each fall, when the
marshes are alive with the colors of autumn, members of the museum
enjoy sailing excursions down the Essex River on the Lewis
H. Story. I painted this painting while standing in
the mud next to a muskrat hole in the bank of the creek. David Brown
of the museum staff loaned me some old boots which had been discarded
by the Essex Fire Department.