Graham McKay of Lowell's Boat Shop decodes the nautical notations on the Museum of Old Newbury's 1864 slate deck log.

MOON's Deck Log on a National Stage: Council of American Maritime Museums (CAMM) Conference Adventures

by Bethany Groff Dorau

Well, friends, my apologies for the tardy newsletter. I have just returned home from Pensacola, Florida, where the 2025 Council of American Maritime Museums conference took place. It has been quite a week! Among other things, we learned about canoes found in the forests of Alaska, explored the Maritime Underground Railroad, and we were offered Savannah, a decommissioned nuclear merchant vessel. Graham McKay, the executive director of Lowell's Boat Shop, assured me that it would not make it across the bar at the mouth of the Merrimack River. Alas.

Read more following event announcements...

Launch of Savannah, July 21, 1959. Can't you see this tied up in front of the American Yacht Club?

Upcoming Museum Events

We know it is frustrating when events sell out quickly, so we are staggering registration dates to give everyone a chance. Please click the image or link below to check out all of our upcoming events!

Funded, in part, by the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism

Save the Date for these Upcoming 250th Events! Click here for more information.

Burying Ground Tour 1: Old Hill and Newburyport's Road to Revolution

Friday, April 18, 2025, 6:30 PM

Old Hill Burying Ground - Tickets here - Tickets here

Newburyport’s Road to Revolution Part IV:

Black Newburyporters

Thursday, May 8, 7:00 p.m.

Newburyport City Hall Auditorium - Tickets here

Burying Ground Tour 2: First Parish and Newburyport's Road to Revolution

Saturday, May 10, 10:00 a.m.

First Parish Burying Ground - Tickets here

Newburyport’s Road to Revolution Part V:

Powder & Shot

Thursday, May 22, 7:00 p.m.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church - Tickets here



Walking Tour: Road to Revolution in downtown Newburyport

Saturday, June 14, 10:00 a.m.

at Museum of Old Newbury - Tickets available May 10



Newburyport’s Road to Revolution Part VI:

Bunker Hill - Heroes & Cowards

Thursday, June 18, 7:00 p.m.

at Firehouse Center for the Arts - Tickets available April 24

Burying Ground Tour 3: Sawyer Hill and Newburyport's Road to Revolution

Sunday, June 29, 6:30 p.m.

at Sawyer Hill Burying Ground - Tickets available May 11



Get your tickets for this once-in-a-lifetime event!

Come party with us at the Old Gaol, sip on cocktails, and enjoy a night to remember! This event is a fundraiser to support our archives.

MOON's Deck Log on a National Stage: Council of American Maritime Museums Conference Adventures

by Bethany Groff Dorau

Graham and I introduce the1864 slate deck log to an enthusiastic conference audience.

Friday, April 11.

Well, friends, it has been quite a week! I am writing this from a brewery in Pensacola, Florida, where the 2025 CAMM conference is in its final day. We have heard about canoes found in the forests of Alaska, explored the Maritime Underground Railroad, and we were offered Savannah, a decommissioned nuclear merchant vessel. Graham McKay, the executive director of Lowell's Boat Shop, assured me that it would not make it across the bar at the mouth of the Merrimack River. Alas. 

Tuesday, April 8 - the CAMM adventures began for boon companions James Dorau, yours truly, and Graham McKay, executive director of Lowell's Boat Shop. First stop, New Orleans for Po' Boys, etouffee, and schooners of Abita (giant frosty mugs of local beer) before the 3-hour drive to Pensacola.

On the way from New Orleans to Pensacola, we detoured briefly to TrainTastic Interactive Model Railroad Museum in Gulfport, Mississippi, where we tested the towing capacity of their kiddy train.

The Pensacola Lighthouse & Maritime Museum (yes, we climbed all 177 steps up), located in the middle of the massive Pensacola Naval Air Station, was the host for the conference. We met in rooms in aforementioned brewery, in the heart of historic downtown Pensacola at the Bowden building, and in the National Naval Aviation Museum, the largest such museum in the world.  

Though I travelled to raise the visibility of the Museum of Old Newbury and bring attention to our incredible collection through the story of the slate deck log (you can read the story of this artifact and the ill-fated voyage that it documents here and here), I was travelling under the auspices (and the CAMM membership) of Lowell’s Boat Shop, on whose executive committee I sit. I began the conference with the sense that I was a bit of an outlier. Many of the people in the room had sailed, steamed, or rowed together. As the three days of the conference wore on, however, I came to understand something fundamental. Aside from the challenges we all face in the care and management of our museums, everyone in that room, including me, shares a belief that everyone has a maritime story. Everyone, through travel, immigration, recreation, experience, and imagination, is linked to water. 

Newburyport's maritime history forms a significant part of our collection, including photographs like the rare rear view of the fabled clam shacks. Gift of Scott Nason.

Think about it. Of course the Museum of Old Newbury has a significant maritime collection – it would be impossible to represent the history of our community without it, but my personal history is also tied to water – the arrival of my ancestors by boat to Newbury and New Brunswick and New York, one grandfather leading cargo ships in Arctic convoys and the other landing on the beaches of Normandy in World War II. I have spent countless days at Sandy Point with my children, or with my friends on the beach, years ago with a Cosmopolitan magazine and baby oil, and now with my book club tome and SPF 50. 

My maternal grandfather went to sea in New York with false papers as a 13-year-old, and then applied for this Seaman's Protection Certificate at 17 years old, in 1926. I thought of him, and of all of our maritime connections, throughout the conference.



Until fairly recently, most new Americans arrived by boat. Captain Jonathan Boulware, President & CEO of the South Street Seaport Museum in New York noted in his presentation that the Lightship Ambrose, now owned by their museum, not Ellis Island or the Statue of Liberty, was the first sign for countless thousands of immigrants that they were nearing the end of their long and often perilous journey to America. The connection between people and maritime heritage is based on thousands of years of travel by water, the fastest, and before air travel, often the only way to move around the world.   

This is the thing about a good conference – it broadens your perspective on the work you do every day, and if it is a great conference, it offers practical resources while asking provocative questions and offering new perspectives. Was the discovery of an never-before-seen indigenous canoe in the Alaska forest directly relevant to my everyday work? No. But watching the interaction between Stormy Hamar, an Indigenous Haida canoe builder, and Jason Rucker, who facilitated the recording of traditional Haida watercraft with not only written and oral histories, but with innovative 3d photographic techniques, reminded me that we are losing practitioners of traditional salt marsh haying in Newbury right now and inspired me to think about what we can do at the Museum of Old Newbury to better document those stories and others like them. 

On a more practical note, representatives from New Bedford Whaling Museum and Nantucket Historical Association walked the conference through their extraordinary work on the website WhalingHistory.org, developed with Mystic Seaport Museum, compiling data from many sources including logbooks, journals, ship registers, newspapers, business papers, and custom house records. Right now there are twenty Newburyport vessels in the collection, but we are excited to partner with this group to make our whaling resources (we have several logbooks and other documents in our collection) available to a wider audience.

Jason Rucker stands next to a 10-meter dugout canoe on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, carved by Stormy Hamar. Read more about this remarkable project here. Photo courtesy of Stormy Hamar

In the end, we had a whole lot of fun, and the Museum of Old Newbury (and its director) have many new friends in the maritime museum community. And if you ever want to spend your vacation on a submarine, or know someone who wants a nuclear cargo ship with a killer midcentury lobby, let me know and I’ll put you in touch with the right people. 

Top: The USS Cobia, part of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, is operated as an Air B&B for up to 65 people!

Middle: The sleeping arrangements are cramped, to say the least. Not for the faint of heart.

Bottom: The main lobby of the Savannah is a time capsule of mid-century decor. Here were welcomed all passengers from 1962 to 1965.

The point of our presentation was, accidentally, the best lesson from this conference. Graham, as a sailing ship captain and boat builder, interpreted Captain Pritchard’s scrawled notes on the slate deck log, and in doing so, illuminated the captain's final hours. Graham's unique perspective, from his experience navigating at sea, brought this artifact to life.

Writ large, the lesson is that we who are passionate about history and preservation are better together, and that we are all, in some way, connected to a maritime story.  

Until next year, CAMM, and thank you for the warm welcome!

Did you know that your Museum of Old Newbury membership at the $100 level and above includes a membership to NARM, which allows free access to a dozen maritime museums and even the Battleship New Jersey? Click here to upgrade or renew your membership.

Something Is Always Cooking...

Crawfish Etouffée

Note: In honor of our brief stop in New Orleans on this trip, here is a reprint of a family favorite.



I've been making this recipe since the 1980s and believe it came from Texas Monthly. The original recipe called for Tabasco but prefer cayenne. Note: I make mention below of finely chopping the vegetables, though just chopped will do. I like the vegetables to virtually disappear when cooked – that’s my personal preference in this dish. Frozen crawfish can be found at David's Fish Market in Salisbury or Ipswich Fish Market.

- James Dorau

Ingredients

1 stick margarine

¼ c. flour

3/4 c. very finely chopped green onion

3/4 c. very finely chopped onion

2 cloves garlic – minced

½ c. finely chopped green pepper

½ c. finely chopped celery

3 small bay leaves (fresh, if an option)

2 tsps. chopped fresh thyme

5 tsps. chopped fresh basil

1 stick butter

8 oz. tomato sauce

½ tsp. white pepper

2 tsps. salt

1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

Cayenne pepper to taste (I love it spicy)

1 cup dry white wine

1 cup fish stock (or bouillon equivalent)

2 pounds peeled, cooked crawfish tails (if frozen – do not thaw)

1 Tbsp grated lemon zest

¼ c. minced Italian parsley

Cognac, to taste (optional)

½ c. chopped green onions (optional)

Steamed white rice

Directions

Make a dark, walnut-colored roux with the margarine and flour (melt margarine in flat-bottomed pan; add flour, and brown over medium heat, stirring constantly). Add green and yellow onion, garlic, green pepper, celery, bay leaves, thyme, basil, and butter. Sauté uncovered over medium flame for 30 minutes. Add tomato sauce, white pepper, salt, Worcestershire, cayenne, wine and stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat. Add crawfish (if frozen – do not thaw), lemon juice, zest, parsley, and cognac (if using). Heat quickly without boiling and serve immediately.  It’s best served in individual bowls with a round scoop of steamed rice in the center – top with the chopped green onions (optional).

Puzzle Me This...

Click the image to do the puzzle

This collection of vintage postcards of Penscola, Florida are part of the Tichnor Brothers Collection at the Boston Public Library.