Charles W. Morgan

Leo Voisine

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East Freeetown, Massachusetts
I will start with an apology.

I know this is a woodworking forum - and posts of this sort are NOT really woodworking related.

In some way - they are - because I love things that are done with wood.

BUT - there are more things that I love.

A bit obsessively - but I love where I live and I love to brag about the place.

I live in Southeastern New England. It is a VERY maritime place among other things.

Todays brag is about one of my most favorite places on the earth - Newport Rhode Island.

Maybe you have heard about "Americas Cup" - it was here in Newport for over 100 years undefeated.

Famous people - The Vanderbilts, the Astors - and others - have influenced the place

The Navy has influenced.

If you absolutely hate this sort of post just tell me to stop and I will stop.

So for my visit on Fathers Day 2014 to New Port R.I.

The pilgrims get a lot of credit for a lot of stuff - but they kicked out Roger Williams and Rhode Island was born.

Well - Rhode Island is old - lets leave it at that.

I get a kick out of old stuff.

Newport has a rich history and many hundreds and hundreds of houses - I would say even thousands, on the national register of historic places.

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Because all these houses are so close to and there because of Newport Harbor - many were sea captains houses. This is one of hundreds of houses we walked by today. It was the oldest house we saw - today. It is not the oldest house we have seen - it's just the oldest - today. This house as well as 99% of the rest were occupied. ALL - of the houses in this are are on the national register.


The oldest house we have seen and toured was in Plimouth Mass and that was the springer house built in the mid 1600's


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This was just an interesting corner in the historic district.

BTW - the historic district is about all of Newport.


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I am always looking for ideas of things to some day make - this one looked cool. It was in an antique store.



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OK - just one picture here but I could write a small book on the 3 MAIN things in the picture. The bridge in the background has a cool history. The little square lighthouse just ahead of the bow of the ship is Rose Lighthouse - Civil way stuff. I am standing on Fort Adams - Civil War history. John F. Kennedy homestead "Hammersmith" is a stones throw away.

But no - it's ALL ABOUT that ship.

That ship is the Charles W. Morgan - Last Whaling Ship in the world from the Day of Whaling by Sailing ships. That one just underwent a 5 year, 7 million dollar restoration. Today, for the first time since 1941 it SAILED - from Mystic Conn to Newport Harbor. It was a New Bedford Whaler and made it's impression on that city of my birth from 1841 when she was built till her last whaling voyage (voyage 37) in 1926. Today marks her 38th voyage.

She is going to be sailing to several places and will be on display in New Bedford, and in Boston. I will be there on both displays and also to see her back in Mystic Ct.

I was fortunate to tour part of the restoration at the Carpenter shop in Mystic a couple of years ago. THAT - my friends IS FULLY - woodworking. Most of the restoration was done in period methodology - hand tools.

Today was a fully awesome day

I do hope you enjoy the few pictures I posted - I must have taken 50-75 pictures.
 
Great post! One thing you easterners have over us on the west coast, is history. The first time I made a trip to the east I was amazed how must history was there verses what we have out west. Just something I never thought about until I started seeing it. Never been to RI, but my wife has many years ago and she still brings it up occasionally. Mainly for the boats. I love boats, especially old wooden ones. I dream of sailboats and have never been on one. Someday, someday. Great pictures.

Thanks.
 
We lived in Slatersville RI for about 10 years. I owned a contractor supply business and covered the whole state. We spent a lot of time in Portsmouth, Newport, Bristol, Warren, Little Compton and other seacoast towns. Nice place to live.

I love most of New England, Couldn't imagine living anywhere else.
 
Great ship! I was on her about three years ago, when they had her hauled out and drydocked at Mystic. Restoration at that time was ongoing, mainly below decks. Good to see she's seaworthy again.
 
I grew up and spent most of my working years in the Mystic / Stonington area. Must have been in 5th or 6th grade and had a small boat (8-10 foot)with a small outboard that I could cruise around on the Mystic River with.

As a kid I spent a lot of time on the Morgan. Great to see the ship fully restored. I remember the bunks which seemed to be about 4 feet long and some of the rooms where headroom was about 5 feet. I think the story was most of the crew were rather short people.

The museum has all the old equipment to make things the way they originally did. I am sure the only power tools used for the restore were for lighting.

Take a ship like that, cover in with whale oil and it must have had a wonderful aroma for all aboard to enjoy.

Anybody up for a "Nantucket sleigh ride"?
Let me get this right - Your going to stick that sharp stick with a rope on it tied to our small boat into that large whale? Do you think that is going to upset the whale??
 
Thanks for the pics and stories, Leo. I've only had the opportunity to see that part of the country once, and it was only for a few days during a business trip. Despite being a short trip, I did get a chance to visit the Mystic Seaport (which was very cool) as well as the Denison Homestead (Pequotsepos Manor) nearby. I arrived at the Manor shortly after closing time on a Sunday afternoon with three co-workers, and upon learning that I was a Denison, the docent invited us all inside for a very nice tour. All in all, I really enjoyed the area. (Have some good stories about Providence RI, too, but in the spirit of family-friendliness, I'll keep them to myself, lol.)

But for the record, we've got some even older houses here in NM. Apartments, even. :D

This is Puye Cliffs, inhabited by about 1500 farmers and hunters from the 900s until about 1580 A.D. (I grew up part of my life within a couple dozen miles of here.)

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I am glad you all liked it.

I love New England and the history we have.

Diane and I spend a great deal of time visiting and digging into all that we can find - and there is no lack at all.

I take tons of pictures every where we go.

I figure - there are people that come here from all over the world just to visit - so - being that I live here - I can share.

When I visit the Morgan in New Bedford next week I will do another little posting of my home town.

It takes me about 30 minutes to get to Newport - non highway!

It takes me 10 minutes to get to New Bedford - non-highway

Boston is 45 minutes - via highway.

Cape Cod - 30 minutes to 2 hours if I go all the way to P-Town

Plimouth is about 45 minutes.

I work in Providence - you can say whatever you want - we already know anyway.
 
Thanks for the pics and stories, Leo. I've only had the opportunity to see that part of the country once, and it was only for a few days during a business trip. Despite being a short trip, I did get a chance to visit the Mystic Seaport (which was very cool) as well as the Denison Homestead (Pequotsepos Manor) nearby. I arrived at the Manor shortly after closing time on a Sunday afternoon with three co-workers, and upon learning that I was a Denison, the docent invited us all inside for a very nice tour. All in all, I really enjoyed the area. (Have some good stories about Providence RI, too, but in the spirit of family-friendliness, I'll keep them to myself, lol.)

But for the record, we've got some even older houses here in NM. Apartments, even. :D

This is Puye Cliffs, inhabited by about 1500 farmers and hunters from the 900s until about 1580 A.D. (I grew up part of my life within a couple dozen miles of here.)

Vaughn - I read a GREAT book about how the America's were colonized. The book started in the late 1400's and included all ethnic groups. It said a LOT about how this all happened and was very interesting.

North America was populated long before the 1400's - so seeing some evidence in the mid west is not unusual. That is a history of the native indigenous people. We don't have much of that in New England. The story of the history here is more to the point of how the Europeans came in and decimated the indigenous population. That is in and of itself a sad but interesting history lesson.
 
...I work in Providence - you can say whatever you want - we already know anyway.

One fun story involved a gay bar (hey, we didn't know the nature of the clientele when we went in to have a beer), and the other involved a club called The Foxy Lady. (Back in those days, one of my co-workers and I did "research" in every city we traveled to. Providence won, hands down.) ;)

Loved Providence, and had the biggest lobster dinner I've even seen at a little family restaurant there. (3 pound monster that fed two of us to bursting, with all the fixings, for under $20.) Great part of the country, and you're fortunate to live in that area. :thumb:
 
This is a great story Leo. Thanks for posting it, I love this stuff.:thumb:
I haven't been to Newport, or Mystic Seaport, but you've now put them on our list. We're going to have to take a drive sometime soon and check them out.
 
I had a few occasions to visit the Naval War College at Newport for war simulations and liked it so much we got a time share there one summer. A delightful place.... and another vote for the best lobster dinner and sunset champagne sailing ever.
 
One fun story involved a gay bar (hey, we didn't know the nature of the clientele when we went in to have a beer), and the other involved a club called The Foxy Lady. (Back in those days, one of my co-workers and I did "research" in every city we traveled to. Providence won, hands down.) ;)

Loved Providence, and had the biggest lobster dinner I've even seen at a little family restaurant there. (3 pound monster that fed two of us to bursting, with all the fixings, for under $20.) Great part of the country, and you're fortunate to live in that area. :thumb:

The Foxy Lady........man, I could tell you stories ;):whistling::champagne:
 
Foxy Lady - I have never been there - but - there was a guy at work -- Ohhhh - could I tell you "HIS" stories.

My Friend worked as a civilian photographer at the War College. I have been there for the 4-th of July celebrations - great place.

The War College is not in the shot of the Morgan - at least not that shot - but in 2 more minutes time the Morgan and the War College would have been in the camera line of sight.
 
You should put a duplicate of that doorway on your house. That is beautiful looking, and looks like it would be FUN to build too!

I wonder how long it took to make by hand with chisles?
 
A vast majority of these houses were build by ship builders - meaning the carpenters that build ships also built houses. There is nothing straight on a ship - and also nothing straight in these houses.

There were a LOT of servants in Newport, and a LOT of extremely wealthy people. The rich spent money like most us us cannot even imagine. Some day I will go on a mansion tour to see how the group "above" the 1% lived in the gilded age.

This house - as well as all the surrounding area was the low income area way way back in the day. BUT - low income whereas the people here served the very wealthy. They were exposed to WEALTH - every day of their lives. Their employers may have been throwing away very expensive good stuff, and the servants took it home.

When Abagail Vanderbilt built Marble House - she built it so that the expense of building the house was painful to the Vanderbilt finances. That is what those people did. She most likely had 50 servants to work in her house. The more servants they had the better of a standing they had in the social groups. They worked VERY hard to spend more money than the Astor's did. Beside Marble House was Abagail's SECOND house in Newport. The first mansion - was not recognized highly enough in Newport society. The mansions in Newport are 20,000 - 50,000 square feet of living area. The insides are gilded in gold.

When I had my franchise business I told one of my wealthy customers with a 6,000 sq-ft house that she should go to Newport to see how the rich people lived. I told her that she had no idea.

The servants houses in Newport are all small houses and crowded together. I mean some are so close together that there is only 4-6 inches between the houses. It's really weird - there is NO possible way to repair between some of these houses. There is a lot of deterioration between the houses that are that close together.

The rich people live in gates estates - with driveways that are more like a road.

I heard that the GARAGE - to the Heinz estate - sold for 57 million dollars.

Newport is a very diverse place. There are a lot of low income families, artists, and hippy sort of people. There are a few colleges in the area. Lots of bicycles. Lots of VERY VERY narrow streets.

There are extremely rich people with Bently's, and Roll's and Ferrari's - nothing is out of place in Newport.

There are private boats in Newport worth more than my entire neighborhood.

It is OLD - OLD - but well kept. There are no slum areas. Even so - Newport is a VERY expensive place to live.

The doorway is certainly ornate - and by far NOT alone.

If you wanted to do a study of ornamentation - this is a place to study.
 
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