The Maine Maritime Museum in Bath
If you stand on the grounds of the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, close your eyes and listen closely, you might hear the persistent sounds of industry – the faint echo of men laboring long hours to build great ships. It could be the casual banter of the workers, the resounding “thump” of a mallet or the buzz of a saw slicing wood.
Located partially on the site of the Percy & Small shipyard, in Bath, Maine, these sounds filled the air from 1897 to 1920. It takes only a little imagination to hear them. During those years, forty-one large schooners were constructed, bearing four, five and six masts. Because of its significance, the shipyard site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. What better location to tell the story of maritime Maine?
Other sounds prevail today, like giggling children happy to be out on a field trip, and birds twittering overhead in the trees. But a strong sense of the nautical past still clings to this spot with good reason.
Perhaps the most famous ship produced at this site was the six-masted coal schooner Wyoming, launched in 1909. Unfortunately, the vessel did not live a long life. The Wyoming was lost during a gale east of Cape Cod in 1924. She was the largest wooden schooner ever constructed and could carry more than 6,000 tons of cargo. Some considered her the pinnacle of wooden shipbuilding.
“Maine was a very significant state in the nation’s shipbuilding industry through most of the 19th century. As long as wooden shipbuilding was state of the art, Maine built more ships than any other state in the union,” says Nathan Lipfert, library director of the museum.
If those dedicated craftsmen from the turn-of-the-century were alive today, they would be pleased to know the heritage of ship building in Maine is alive and well. It must be gratifying to see a vessel you helped create, glide along the water and equally as devastating to hear of her loss.
Covering 20 acres along the Kennebec River, the museum includes five historic buildings, and two launching ways, in addition to their main structure. Whether you’re a serious maritime enthusiast or not, you can spend an enjoyable two or three hours wandering their exhibits.
Most people begin their visit with the main structure called the Maritime History Building. Six galleries portray life on the Maine coast with its close ties to the sea.
Any fan of ship models or nautical artwork will be happy at this facility. It seems countless artists have been enthralled by ships, striving to capture their likeness on canvas. The results portray the majesty and grace of tall ships conquering the waves.
The ship models will astound you with the exacting attention to detail. Model builders painstakingly create these miniature works of art, even replicating the inside of the vessel, few if anyone will ever see! You have to admire their patience and skill.
Once finished inside, there’s still plenty to see on the grounds and in the outbuildings at the Maine Maritime Museum.
The oldest of the shipyard buildings is the Paint and Treenail Shop, from 1897. A treenail, for those non-nautical types like myself, is a wooden pin used as a fastener for wooden planks. A connecting walkway leads directly to the Mill and Joiner Shop dating from 1899. This structure contained the sawmill and other woodworking machinery.
In the Mould Loft, the lines of the schooner frames were drawn full size and patterns were made to enable the frame pieces to be cut. Clearly shipbuilding was very much a hands-on process in those days.
This being Maine, you’ll want to visit their multi-dimensional exhibit on lobstering. Displays in the two-story barn will explain everything you always wanted to know about this famous state export.
The Grand Banks fishing schooner Sherman Zwicker is a regular feature at the dock during the summer months. She was built in 1942 by Smith & Rhuland in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, and is one of the last of her kind. You can climb aboard the Zwicker for an in-depth look.
Also along the river and within sight of the museum is Bath Iron Works, a shipyard still in operation. They build large vessels of a different sort, Navy Destroyers. But as you might imagine for security reasons, those vessels can only be viewed from a distance.
