Lowell's Boatshop History

Lowell's Boat Shop is considered to be America's oldest operating boat shop. It features a continuing establishment of wood boatbuilding since 1793 and is believed to be the birthplace of the American Dory. The Lowell boatbuilding business started on the North bank of the Merrimack River in the last decade of the 18th century and continues on the property that was purchased by Simeon Lowell, the founder. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1990.

Hiram Lowell, who built the oldest shop building standing on the property today, was Simeon Lowell's grandson, and is considered to be a "pioneer" producer of American dories in the 19th century. He and his heirs developed Lowell's Boat Shop to become the leading dory shop in America during the late 19th century. Dories are still produced in the ancient buildings today. The oldest structures on the site are Greek Revival industrial structures built circa 1860. By this time Gloucester fishermen had adopted dory fishing as a new and more efficient means of fishing and Hiram Lowell's dory shop was built to supply custom dories for this market. Lowell's Boat Shop came to dominate the American dory industry supplying orders of dories locally, nationally, and internationally.

Simeon Lowell

In 1878, Salisbury historian W.H.B. Currier noted:

"Nearly ninety years ago [i.e. in 1791] Simeon Lowell of Amesbury, bought an estate of one Edmunds, ship-builder in Salisbury, and soon after, with his sons, commenced boat-building [on the Edmunds lot]. They built many boats for ships and other vessels, also small schooners for fishing, privateering, etc."

Prior to moving to Salisbury in 1791, Simeon Lowell practiced as a "boat builder" in Amesbury as early as 1774 (Essex County Deed 144:127), and he moved to the Edmunds lot following the death of his first wife Anna Wadleigh in 1789. Two years after his 1789 re-marriage to Anna Webster of Salisbury, Simeon Lowell purchased the Edmunds lot on the Merrimack River.

By 1793, Simeon Lowell (with his 20-year-old son Stephen Lowell and his 16-year-old son Benjamin Wadleigh Lowell) commenced the Lowell family boat building business on the Merrimack River shore. Located three lots downstream of the recent Lowell's Boat Shop site, the historic Edmunds lot was used for ship-building and boat-building by the Lowells between 1791 and 1797; it was purchased with a house, barn, wharf and shop buildings and was still owned by descendants of Simeon Lowell in 1927. In 1797 and 1815, Simeon Lowell expanded his waterfront holdings to include the two vacant lots which now support the surviving Lowell's Boat Shop buildings.

Stephen & Benjamin Lowell

In 1830, Simeon Lowell willed all his property including wharves, boat shed and "part of a dwelling house and barn" (on the Edwards Lot) to six "children and heirs" which included his sons Stephen and Benjamin W. Lowell. Stephen and Benjamin W. Lowell worked together as "S and B Lowell, shipbuilders" between 1805 and 1827. Stephen Lowell's boat shop became Daniel Lowell's shipyard east of the present Lowell's Boat Shop property, and that business continues today as the Pert Lowell & Company boatyard in nearby Newbury. Benjamin, another son of Simeon, took over his shop. He had a shipyard just adjacent to the Shop downstream where he built 40-50 ton schooners. Ralph Lowell recalls that as a boy he saw the ways of what was believed by the Lowells to be Simeon and then Banjamin's yard. They are still buried there in the mud on the piece of shore property next to the deck and ramp for the float. Lowell believes that the shop built significant numbers of dories when Banjamin was running the business but that the big expansion came in the time of Benjamin's son, Hiram.

Hiram Lowell

Hiram was born in Amesbury in 1814 and became one of Amesbury's leading industrialists. He was a skilled boat builder born into an ancient Merrimack Valley shipbuilding and boatbuilding family, and he was primarily responsible for establishing the dory-building business at Lowell's Boat Shop in the mid-19th century.

During the 1840's, Hiram Lowell trained with his father Benjamin Wadleigh Lowell in a successor "boatbuilding business" called B.W. Lowell & Son. When he was 34 years old, Hiram Lowell inherited all assets of B.W. Lowell & Son and it appears likely that some of the tools, patterns, etc. of this business were transferred into Hiram's new shop in 1860. On December 13, 1860, the local newspaper The Villager reported that, "The boat builders of Salisbury Point are making preparations for the Spring trade. Three new shops have been erected, --one by Morrill & Flanders, one by Hiram Lowell, and one by Morrill & Kenniston." In 1897, the Amesbury Daily News recalled that Hiram Lowell in the early 19th century "built a great variety of boats of different classes" and that "the present dory business [was] a development of the past 30 years [i.e. commenced by Hiram Lowell circa 1860]." Hiram Lowell's 1860 Boat Shop was built as a 25' x 46', 3x5 bay structure, which was 2-1/2 stories tall on the street end, and 3-1/2 stories tall on the river end. It was positioned gable end to the street and was supplied with classical detailing and 6-over-6 windows in the Greek Revival style which was the dominant fashion in America in the mid-19th century. It was originally clad with painted wood clapboards, and roofed with wood shingles. Its overall architectural design closely resembled his uncle's (Stephen Lowell's) boat shop which existed downstream on a nearby family property. Hiram Lowell's 1860 structure survives as the principal and tallest building on the Lowell's Boat Shop site today. Essex County deeds 163:148 and 208:131 indicate that the property beneath this structure was acquired by the Lowell family in 1815 and early maps from the 1850's (e.g. Woodford's Map of 1854 and the ca. 1856 Whitlocks map of Webster's Point) indicate no substantial structure on the site prior to 1860.

Hiram Lowell, principal dory builder at Lowell's Boat Shop, was a son of Benjamin Wadleigh Lowell and grandson of Simeon Lowell. Hiram Lowell's shop achieved peak efficiency after the Civil War. After 1865, the Lowells expanded their operations in the commercial fishing dory line and additionally developed a beautiful new "thirteen foot recreational rowing skiff...for river use." This recreational line appealed to hundreds of Victorian "rusticators" who sought picturesque and natural beauty in excursions throughout the lower Merrimack River Valley. By expanding their line of mass-produced dories and employing a greater work force, Hiram Lowell greatly increased dory production in his shops. In 1861, Hiram Lowell produced 180 dories annually; between 1871 and 1897, the shop produced an average of 885 dories yearly, representing nearly a five-fold increase in productivity. Commercial and recreational dories from Lowell's Boat Shop were shipped all over the East Coast. On February 15, 1877, the Villager reported that, "The boat-builders at Salisbury Point are employing extra help in order to fill large orders received all the way from Halifax [Nova Scotia] to Georgia."

Henry Hall, who visited Hiram Lowell's boatbuilding shops in 1880 was amazed by the efficiency of Hiram Lowell and Son's boatbuilding operations. Hall observed:

"The business in the shop is organized in a way not seen in any other branches of boat-building, except in the few establishments (not exceeding twenty in the whole country) where ship's boats are built on a large scale. Each man has a special task to perform, as the getting out the boards for the floor, the planks for the sides, the frames, or other pieces, the fitting of the several parts of the boats into place, or the painting or finishing. Each one is paid by the piece and the result is seen in a degree of rush and hurry in the large shops not noticed in other branches of the art. The boats are built in winter time and the active work of the men serves to keep them warm in spite of the rather excessive ventilation of the barn-like buildings."

For most of the latter half of the 19th century, Hiram Lowell resided in the large house across the street now numbered 452 Main Street. It was a simple task for Hiram Lowell to walk to work and to supervise all activities on the waterfront. His name appeared in the name of the shop from the 1820s, and it was variously known as Hiram Lowell, Hiram Lowell & Sons, etc., until Ralph Lowell incorporated it as Lowell Marine Services in 1974.

The firm was always operated as a partnership, and the grandfather sold to the grandson. The place was always valued as a business on the basis of an outside appraisal of inventory, according to Lowell, and nothing was ever given away except the good will and the name itself. Ralph's father died when he was 12 and Ralph bought out his grandfather in time. "Of course none of the grandfathers demanded cash", Ralph says. "They always set up a series of notes at interest. The grandsons earned it and paid their grandfathers. As to who ran the shop, Ralph's father ran the shop, but his grandfather went to Gloucester, went to Boston, chased down the business, collected the money and put his oar in. I think that as long as any of them were able, they made it a point to come across the street. They always lived on the other side."

Coincident with the boat building business, Hiram Lowell became involved in hat manufacturing and served as President of the Merrimack Hat Company in Amesbury between ca. 1863 and 1897. The Merrimac Hat Company employed steam power to manufacture wool hats, which were in great demand during the Civil War. The business was extremely successful and lucrative. During Hiram Lowell's presidency in 1877, Merrimac Hat Company built its large and impressive red brick factory which survives upriver above the Amesbury public landing. This Hat Company building is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

George Morrill & William Flanders

The large building upstream of Hiram Lowell's 1860 shop appears to have been constructed on its present lot in 1860 by Salisbury Point boat builders George H. Morrill and Francis W. Flanders, who operated a boat building company called Morrill & Flanders. This property was purchased from and later sold back to the Lowells and is now part of Lowell's Boat Shop. The local newspaper, the Villager described the construction of the new Morrill & Flanders shop in its December 13, 1860 issue, while Essex County deeds 699:21, 974:169 and 699:21 trace the subsequent ownership of the property to various members of the Morrill and Lowell families.

Although he is primarily remembered for having been a boatbuilder, George H. Morrill (head of Morrill & Flanders), was also captain of the steamboat Queen of the Merrimac and was owner of a lumber planing mill on nearby Clark's Road. Morrill may have played an instrumental role in improving the steam power system in the dory shops and probably supplied milled boards for dory construction. The Morrill & Flanders Building was acquired by Fred E. Lowell in 1902 and has been a major part of Lowell's Boat Shop ever since (Essex County deeds 1537:232, 1537:233, 1676:170).

Fred E. Lowell

In 1874, Hiram Lowell 'retired from [the boatbuilding] business" at 60 years of age and he left the management of his company to his son Fred E. Lowell. Fred was born in 1839 and was 36 years old in 1874. In 1883, Fred was officially deeded the family property which comprises the east half of the property. Under Fred E. Lowell's ownership, Lowell's Boat Shop increased dory production to its highest levels recorded. Annual production topped 1,000 dories for each year between 1898 and 1918 and reached a peak of 2,029 dories in the zenith year of 1911.

By the late 1880s, Fred E. Lowell and others developed Merrimack Valley dory building into a dominant enterprise. In 1888, Lowell's Boat Shop was recognized as a pioneer boat producer by historian Duane Hurd. Hurd stated:

"The only industry holding place [in Salisbury] since the Revolution is boat-building--the dory manufacture, commenced by Simeon Lowell, and through his generations, reaching to the present time, [now consists] of seven firms [producing] nearly 2500 boats annually for the fisheries of New England, British and French provinces."

It is possible that initial prototypes of the Grand Banks dory were designed before Simeon Lowell died in 1830; however, Simeon is chiefly remembered for having designed and built round-sided "wherries" for river and surf use.

By 1890, Fred E. Lowell had worked out an agreement with the Moultons who lived across the river to assist him in the delivery of finished dories to Portsmouth and Gloucester. He hung overalls from high points of the shop to signal the Moultons that he had a supply of dories ready for delivery. The Moultons towed the boats across the river, stacked them into horse-drawn carts on their farm and delivered them to customers.

Fred A. Lowell

On August 15, 1914, Frederick E. Lowell deeded the entire property "with the buildings used for boat shops" to his son Frederick A. Lowell. Fred A. Lowell, born in 1862, was also known as "Tink" or "Tinky" Lowell to other workers in the shop. Tinky was 52 years old when he formally received title to the property.

The Bird's Eye View of Amesbury printed in 1914 provides a clear and good view of the property, which was purchased by Fred A. Lowell. The street facades of the 1860 Hiram Lowell Shop and the Morrill & Flanders building were essentially identical to the facades which survive today. Two small structures (another Morrill & Flanders building and the "flat" roofed building) faced the street on the west. Before Ralph Lowell's Show Room/Paint Shop addition was built in 1946, the Morrill & Flanders Building also had numerous windows on the west wall. The west wall windows and small storage sheds were removed by Ralph Lowell when the Show Room/Paint Shop addition was built in 1946.

One of the most radical changes to be effected by Fred A. Lowell was the conversion of the shop from steam to electricity circa 1914. New electric operation promised reduced threat of fire damage; reduced threat of physical injury caused by workers contacting shafts, gears and belts; a quieter work environment; and flexibility, because machines run by electric motors could be located almost anywhere, without the need to be oriented parallel to a spinning power shaft. By converting the shop to electricity, Fred A. Lowell was also able to gain increased internal work area by removing the boiler, steam engine, and related components located originally in the basement of the 1860 building. After the steam equipment was removed, the basement was improved as a dory paint shop.

In September, 1923, Fred A. Lowell put an advertisement in the local paper, which read "Wanted….Young Man to Learn Trade." Aubrey Marshall, then aged 20, joined Lowell's Boat Shop after meeting with Mr. Lowell and remained working in the shop through the 1970's. In September 1977, Bob Atkinson's interview with Aubrey Marshall (subtitled "The Lowell Boatshop as seen through the eyes of Aubrey Marshall") was published in the national magazine WoodenBoat and Marshall's reflections on 54 years at Lowell's Boat Shop were vividly preserved. Aubrey Marshall described Tinky Lowell's annual trips to Maine to identify trees for cutting, the delivery of dry lumber to Lowell's by railroad and lumber storage in the upper floors of the buildings. Aubrey also described the "track system" (assembly-line system) which Fred A. Lowell used to build dories inside the shop.

Fred A. (Tinky) Lowell maintained tight control over all activities at the shop and it seems that Hiram's "piecework" reward system was abandoned by the early 20th century. According to early 20th century workers Aubrey Marshall and Herbert Mann, Fred A. Lowell maintained a rigid work schedule that paid "40c an hour, with a 50 hour week, 7 am to 5pm, with one hour for lunch. Water breaks (there was no running water on the property and workers crossed the street for water) were limited to five minutes each." Aubrey stated "you worked every minute, no coffee breaks or nothing." Whenever any conversation arose, Fred A. Lowell would say "Boys, we haven't got any time for those long stories." In retaliation, the workers often slowed down production in the mornings when Tinky went to answer the daily mail.

Fred A. Lowell retained ownership of Lowell's Boat Shop from 1914 through 1942. During this period, the shop responded to pressures and opportunities opened up by World War I, the Great Depression of the late 1920s and 1930s, World War II, the invention of the gasoline powered outboard motor and the virutal abandonment of dory fishing. After 1929, Lowell's Boat Shop introduced a line of dories designed for motorized use and commercial paints were employed and in-house mixing of lead paint was abandoned. New markets for dories were found with the United States Coast Guard and the Boy Scouts of America.

Walter E. Lowell

Walter E. Lowell, (1891-1933) worked in Lowell's Boat Shop between World War I and the Great Depression. He was an MIT graduate. Walter Lowell died of diphtheria and pneumonia in the early 1930s and was outlived by his father, Frederick A. Lowell. Frederick A. Lowell sold the family legacy to Walter's son Ralph P. Lowell in 1942.

Ralph P. Lowell

Ralph P. Lowell (born 1920), Fred A's grandson, began working at Lowell's Boat Shop when he was 12. He came to work the summer following his father Walter's death in 1933 and he continued working at the shop for 43 years. Ralph owned and managed Lowell's Boat Shop from 1942 to 1976. During this period, World War II, the post-war boom years and new materials (e.g. fiberglass) strongly affected operations in the shop. Ralph Lowell started working in the Paint Room and as a young boy also assisted dory production by turning grindstones for the sharpening of tools and fetching buckets of water from the well across the street. After he mastered these tasks, Ralph progressed to the cutting and shaping of dory frames. Some of Ralph Lowell's experiences at the shop were documented by Stan Grayson in an article published in Nautical Quarterly in 1985.

When Ralph Lowell was 15 years old, the shop was struck by flood in March, 1936. At this time, between 50 and 60 new boats were stored in the basement of the Boat Shop. At 6:00 am, Ralph asked his grandfather if the boats should be moved and Tinky said, "No, not to bother as the building had never been flooded in its history." However, by 7:30 am, the water on the basement floor was 3 inches deep and it rose approximately one foot each hour, stopping just below the first floor level. The back windows at the shop were all broken out by the flood and creosote and silt were washed in by the river. The Lowells drilled the holes in the floor to let the water out. After the 1936 flood, the basement windows in both of the oldest buildings were rebuilt as continuous horizontal hands in the new modern fashion. The outhouse and sawdust chutes were also moved to their present positions. Ralph Lowell remembers that traditionally sawdust was dumped in the river in the summertime and saved for burning in the wood stove in the winter. In 1938, the Lowell's Boat Shop property was struck by a hurricane, which caused the collapse of a flat-roofed boat storage building on the east end of the property, as well as the destruction of additional boats.

In 1942, before entering the military service, Ralph Lowell built a 20'x15' office addition to prepare for his management of the family property. However, World Wor II intervened and it was not until 1946 that Ralph was able to continue his planned improvements. Using proceeds from a Small Business Administration loan, Ralph took down a dory storage shed which stood on the east end of the property. He rebuilt the wharf near the Office. West of the large Morrill & Flanders Building, he removed the ramp and lumber storage buildings prior to building a large 36' x 32' addition which presently serves as paint shop. To join the new addition to the Morrill & Flanders Building, Ralph removed a portion of the west wall of the Morrill & Flanders Building and created an enlarged, unified interior. The new addition was built with a high interior and a trussed roof without support posts to provide flexible use. Ralph had hoped to eventually extend his new 1946 west addition to completely cover the west end of the lot, but further extensions were never built.

The "flat" roofed lumber storage and seasoning shed at the extreme west end of the property was not removed until after Ralph used it to shelter the "Gin-Lu", a 32 foot motor cruiser which he built and launched in 1946. Ralph Lowell built the "Gin-Lu" to test the feasibility of building large and small boats simultaneously before he signed contracts to build 800 and 900 small boats annually for the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts. Ralph Lowell sold the "Gin-Lu" to Red Hilton of Newburyport and this was the first vessel in the Hilton's Newburyport fleet.

A number of developments seriously challenged the production of wood boats at Lowell's Boat Shop after World War II. Fiberglass boats were developed in the 1950s and every year carved out a greater share of the wooden boatbuilding market. The railroads ceased allowing partial car loads to be shipped, so dory delivery to distant markets became problematic. Commercial fishing with dories was abandoned with the development of net-pulling trawlers, eliminating the traditional "bread and butter" of the trade. All of these factors together promised tough times for wooden boatbuilders at Lowell's Boat Shop and production dropped steadily and dramatically between 1950 and 1975.

Fortunately for Lowell's Boat Shop, a bold "Wooden Boatbuilding Revival" caught root across America beginning the 1970s. Jon Wilson of Maine launched the new magazine WoodenBoat to preserve and promote the art and science of wooden boatbuilding. Lance Lee, a former student of Aubrey Marshall, also moved to Maine in the early 1970s and founded a series of "Apprenticeshops" to continue traditional wooden boatbuilding as a non-profit educational enterprise. Peter H. Spectre has chronicled the 1970s Wooden Boat Building Revival in his 1989 book Different Waterfronts: Stories from the Wooden Boat Revival.

The historic contents of the Hiram Lowell Boat Shop were given to Strawbery Banke to insure their preservation. Aubrey Marshall, master boatbuilder at Lowell's moved to Portsmouth to operate the Strawbery Banke Boat Shop and was assisted there by another Lowell's boatbuilder, Robert Elliott. Elliott remembers that tools and materials given to Strawbery Banke included "quite a large number of dory patterns, with complete plans for 3 or 4 boat [types], some naval architect's drawing tools, clamps, planes, mallets, nail kegs, tables, angles, and an anvil." The anvil was probably the same one pictured in Yankee Magazine in 1961 and survived from Lowell's Boat Shop's shipbuilding operations in the 19th century.

In November, 1977, Jan Zimmerman published "Building the Banks Dory" in Wilson's new WoodenBoat magazine. Zimmerman's article has been described as "A detailed step-by-step explanation of how the Lowell banks dory is built at Strawbery Banke". During the 1970s, Strawbery Banke's Boat Shop functioned as a sort of public interpretive center for Lowell's Boat Shop in Amesbury. In 1979, Maynard Bray explained, "Most old-time dory shops are gone now, but at least two shops still turn out banks dories commercially. At Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the tools, patterns and expertise acquired from the country's oldest dory shop, Lowell's of Amesbury, Massachusetts are put to good use as part of that museum's apprentice program; and in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, the Allen dory shops keeps a full-time dory building crew going." Strawbery Banke lost some of its expertise, however, when Aubrey Marshall died in 1981. Odells

The Odells

Malcolm J. (Jim) and Marjorie R. Odell purchased Lowell's Boat Shop from Ralph Lowell in 1976 with the intent of maintaining and preserving both the Lowell's Boat Shop Building and the wooden boat-building business. Under the Odells' ownership, the property was historically researched (1988) and declared a National Historic Landmark (1990). This feasibility study was undertaken to document the historic structure, evolution of the site, and assist in formulating plans to maintain Lowell's Boat Shop as a non-profit educational enterprise in the future.

The Odells purchased the property under the condition that Ralph (Fred) Tarbox remain on site to build boats and teach traditional boatbuilding methods. Under the Odells' ownership, use of the sawdust disposal chutes in the Morrill & Flanders Building was discontinued and new rooms for sawdust storage and HVAC equipment were built on the second floor of the Morrill & Flanders Building. Ralph Lowell's "Show Room" was also converted into a Paint Shop, and new mechanical ductwork was added to remove paint fumes. In 1983, the Odells also introduced plumbing to the property and built a restroom in the basement of the 1860 building.

Lowell's Boat Shop Trust and Newburyport Maritime Society

By the early 1990's, Jim Odell decided that the boat shop had to function as a charitable institution to insure its continued operation. To facilitate this transition, it was purchased by the Trust for Public Lands and the Lowell's Boat Shop Trust was formed to provide operational and financial support. It continued to operate during this period in a manner similar to the mode of operations established by the Odells. In 1994, the Trust for Public lands granted a preservation easement over the property to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The Trust for Public lands acquired the property with the hope that it would be able to interest a local charitable organization in assuming ownership of the property. The Newburyport Maritime Society whose mission was the interpretation of the Maritime history of the lower Merrimack Valley was a logical fit. The Maritime Society assumed ownership of the shop in 1994. The Boat Shop Trust continues as a support organization dedicated to the needs of the Boat Shop.

With the shift to operating as a public charity, the emphasis of operations has also changed. The shop has expanded its teaching programs to include adult and youth boat building courses. Commercial boat building and repair is still offered by the shop with a focus on perpetuating our traditional designs. We are also offering enhanced public access to the site through guided tours and on-site interpretive materials. After the closure of the boat building operation at Strawbery Banke, we reacquired the historical artifacts that help interpret our history.

Our mission is to preserve the tradition of boat building at the shop and to interpret its history. A key component of this has been to insure the structural integrity of the shop. The Maritime Society has completed a $365,000 renovation project that was funded through a grant from the Massachusetts Historical Commission. We hope to obtain additional grants to rebuild the docks and floats which will enable us to offer on-the-water programs. The Maritime Society and the Boat Shop Trust are working together to insure our success in these efforts.