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by WARREN D. JORGENSEN
When Harold Burnham, 39, lavs the keel tor a hand
crafted wooden boat in his boatyard in Essex, Mass. (pop. .3,267), lie's
carrying on a family tradition dating to 1819. He opened the business in
1995 on land where ancestor Oliver Burnham operated a boatyard five
generations ago, until it closed during World War 11. In fact, Harold is
the 28th Burnham to make a career in the shipwright trade, operating
the only full-time boatyard in Essex today.
Harold was bom into a culture of sailing and boat building,
where the craft is absorbed rather than learned.
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Burnhams have operated
a shipyard in Essex, Mass.,
dating back to 1819
"Essex set the standard for American fishing boat construction
during the 18th and 19th centuries,” lie says. At one time in the 19th
century, one of every seven sailing boats in America was built in Essex.
Tlie Burnhams are very much a part of that legacy, being among the
seven original families that settled tlie town in 16.35.
Harold got his first taste of the trade watching his Either,
Charles, 71, a physicist and part-time boat builder. Neighbor and
mentor Brad Story, a retired full-time boat builder, showed him
how he could make a living at it.
Charles can remember his son's first boat building experience. "He
had to build a sailboat from walnut as part of a class project in tlie first
grade, and Harold's sunk," Charles says. “We are extremely proud of
him now. There aren't too many who would take on the shipwright’s
trade, but Harold is doing it, and doing it well."
When Harold was 10, he began building dories, or row
boats, with his brother Theodore and sister Deborah under their
facher's watchful eye, selling each to build the next. While in
high school, Harold restored and built small sailboats, known as
Beetle Cats, to support his love of sailing. Building and sailing
formed a symbiotic relationship in his young life.
A degree in maritime transportation from the Massachusetts
Maritime Academy in Bourne (pop. 18,721) was followed by five years
at sea as a merchant marine. He returned home in 1991 to marry his
wife, Kim, and open his boatyard. "A man who does what he loves
never works a day in his life,” lie says.
Harold's dream always has been to build replications of traditional
New England fishing vessels like those his ancestors built. In their
original form, those schcxiners and sl<x>ps were workboats, pickup
trucks of the sea, built because they were necessities, not luxuries.
During a boat's construction, he uses everything from the
traditional hand-held adze—an axe-like tool used for more
than a thousand years to shape and dress lumber—to modern
power tools. “I build boats from what I know," he says. “It’s
largely an eyeball thing.”
His first commission came when Tom Ellis, a contractor and
antique store owner, decided to build a Gloucester sdxxiner. Ellis recalls
his 1996 meeting with Burnham, a then untried 29-year-old ship
wright. "He held up a half model of what I had in mind and told me
it stunk," Ellis says. "He came back three days later with a model of a
real Gloucester sdxxiner and said, 'This is what you want.’ That’s what
he designed and built."
Work began on the ship in October 1996 and, with a crew’ of
up to eight men, Harold worked seven days a week, sometimes 18
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