Essex museum captures the life, legacy of tiny shipbuilding town

ESSEX, Mass. — For decades the bell in the steeple of the First Congregational Church set the rhythm of daily life in this tiny shipbuilding town. It woke shipyard workers at dawn, interrupted the pounding of their wooden mallets at lunch, then tolled again when it was time for the workers to trudge home, often hauling scrap wood for the fire.

The bell is long gone and so are the 15 shipyards that Essex hosted during its shipbuilding heyday in the mid-19th century. But the industry's legacy is preserved at the Essex Shipbuilding Museum.

The museum includes one of two working shipyards left in Essex, as well as artifacts and history from the town's vital, and sometimes overlooked, contribution to the region's maritime history.

About 4,000 wooden vessels were built in Essex since colonial settlers constructed the first boat in the mid-1600s. Essex was known among mariners worldwide for its two-masted fishing schooners, but the broader fame went to the fishermen in neighboring Gloucester, who weathered the North Atlantic seas on them.

"These towns have really had a symbiotic relationship. Neither would be what it is without the other," said Randy Robar, the museum's education director. "The irony is, no one's ever heard of this one (Essex)."

The museum educates on basic shipbuilding techniques and history through its displays and classes for children and adults. But Robar says he hopes what stands out to visitors is the town behind the ships, and its love and passion for the craft.

"It's not at all about the boats," he said. "It was an industry of people."

Before Essex was incorporated as a town in 1819, it was known as Chebacco Parish, part of the town of Ipswich. Shipbuilding began there out of necessity, as settlers needed to fish to eat.

But Essex's natural features made it well-suited to building ships, said Beth Rollins, a tour guide and educator at the museum. The area boasted an abundance of oaks. The Essex River gave shipbuilders easy access to the ocean, but the town was buffered from the worst coastal storms by acres of tidal flats and salt marshes. The gentle slope of the shoreline also allowed shipbuilders to more easily launch the vessels.

Shipbuilding soon became the dominant industry, with one in four men directly employed in shipbuilding by 1850s and the town launching about a vessel per week. Shipyard owners with last names like Andrews, Burnham and Story passed down their techniques and businesses over generations. The names still dominate local phone books today.