Finger Lakes history · regional story
Developing historyFifty rowboats, ten steam launches, and the Bowdish boat shop
An 1894 foreclosure account and an 1898 map show a Skaneateles boat works changing hands and standing idle. The names behind the business are harder to untangle.
Research status
This history is still developing.
Parts of this account remain unresolved. Here is what the sources support, what is uncertain, and what we are looking for next.
About this review. Written and source-checked with AI assistance under an owner-authorized editorial process. This is not a personal review by Riley or an independent historian. Sources and unresolved questions are listed below; corrections are welcome.
- What the records establish
- The 1898 map directly records the Bowdish plant's name and idle status. The 1894 purchase date, price, and inventory come from the later National Register nomination and remain attributed to it.
- What remains uncertain
- The accounts of the 1893 buyers disagree. We have not established an uninterrupted chain of ownership, continuous production between 1894 and 1898, or the reason the plant was idle. The map's fire-protection notes do not explain any later fire.
- What we are researching next
- The foreclosure file, deeds, company papers, and contemporary directories may help distinguish a transfer of assets from a change in the business itself. The records behind the competing 1893 accounts are especially important.
Fifty rowboats, ten steam launches, a stock of lumber, tools, and the company's real estate: that was the purchase described in the Shepard Family Houses National Register nomination. The document says Orlando Shepard paid $7,500 for the Bowdish Manufacturing Company's assets at a Bank of Skaneateles foreclosure sale on May 19, 1894. It is a later account of the sale, rather than the foreclosure record itself, but its inventory gives a sense of what was at stake in keeping a boatbuilding business going. [1]
Four years later, an insurance map found the Railroad Street plant idle. The July 1898 Sanborn sheet calls it “The Bowdish Mfg. Co.” and adds “Not in operation.” Nearby notes record no watchman, steam power, and coal fuel. The map shows what its makers recorded that month; it doesn't tell us when work stopped or why. [2]
Following the company from one record to the next is less straightforward than following its buildings on the map. A Historic American Engineering Record account names Sedgwick and George Smith as the men who bought Nelson Bowdish's business in 1893. The Skaneateles Country Club's history of the Lightning sailboat gives a different partnership: George Smith and James Ruth. Both accounts describe the name changing to the Skaneateles Boat and Canoe Company. They do not agree on who made the purchase. [3][4]
The Shepard nomination leaves the problem open. Its author notes that both companies appear in the 1896 county directory, while the 1898 map names only Bowdish. The nomination also reports that its research found no partnership or incorporation records for either company in the Onondaga County Clerk's Office. Those observations leave room for a relationship between the businesses, but they don't establish what that relationship was. [1]
For now, the foreclosure inventory and the map offer two dated views of the shop. Boats, lumber, and tools appear in the account of the 1894 sale; an idle plant still carrying the Bowdish name appears on the 1898 map. The business history between them remains unfinished.
Sources
- Shepard Family Houses National Register nomination, printed p. 11 / PDF p. 12, foreclosure paragraph; printed p. 12 / PDF p. 13, note 22 on the conflicting company histories.
- Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Skaneateles, July 1898, sheet 6, image
06271_1898-0006, Railroad Street boat-manufacturing plant. - St. Lawrence River Skiff, HAER No. NY-562, printed p. 4 / PDF p. 5, paragraph beginning “In 1893.”
- A Brief History of the Lightning, Part I, “Origins of the Idea,” paragraph on George Smith, James Ruth, and the 1893 purchase.