Did August f crabtree make ships?

Answer 1

August Fletcher Crabtree, born in Portland, OR in August 1905, built 16 miniature vessels over a 25 year period, concluding in 1949. In 1955 he took the vessels to The Mariners' Museum in Newport News, VA to offer them for display. The Museum purchased the vessels (some were ships, some boats, one a raft) in 1956 and they have been on permanent display ever since. August was employed then as an interpreter and woodcarver and he and his wife, Winnifred, moved to a secluded home in York County, several miles from The Museum. The ships are built to 1/48 the size of the originals and the oldest (chronologically) in the collection is an Egyptian ship of the type used on the Nile in the Bronze Age, around 1500 BCE. The most recent is the Britannia, Sam Cunard's first transatlantic steam and sail powered ship, built in 1840. He also built three simple replicas of the three Jamestown ships, the Susan Constant, the Godspeed and the Discovery, now in the Jamestown Settlement collection. August Crabtree died in October 1994 and his wife died in August 2005 very nearly a century after August's date of birth.

Ron Lewis

Docent, The Mariners' Museum

America's National Maritime Museum