ROCKPORT – When Evan H. Gerrish began building wood and canvas canoes in the late 1870s, he was experimenting to find a material more efficient than bark, according to Ed Socker of Camden.

Gerrish, considered a pioneer in the world of wood and canvas canoes, was embarking on a career building a new type of canoe, even as he was trying out different techniques on the earlier models.

Socker, who owns Wooly Willow Canoe Co. in Rockport, has one of those early Gerrish canoes in his shop where he is just finishing replacing its canvas. The canoe, he believes, dates back to the early 1880s, and perhaps earlier.

Gerrish was one of the first – some say the first – to commercially make wood and canvas canoes. Until his time, most canoes were made of birch bark. One story, according to Socker, is that Gerrish didn’t like the bark canoes because they leaked at the seams, and at one point, Gerrish experimented with covering a bark canoe with canvas.

The model in his shop is 17 feet, 8 inches, a common size, which Socker says is one of the oldest around.

“This was a transitional canoe,” Socker said. “It was definitely made in the 1880s. I’m certain that it was one of the first he made. Anyone looking at it would say it was among the first 50 he made, probably while he was working by himself. It doesn’t have all the things you’d see in a production canoe.”

There are some indicators that date the canoe, he said. The thwarts – the braces that extend across the inside of a canoe – are very similar to the thwarts in the old Abenaki canoes, Socker said. And there are cane lashing handles at each end of the canoe, which is a holdover from the old bark canoes.

“There are no seats in the canoe,” Socker said. “That tells me it’s old.”

Another indication that the canoe was made early in Gerrish’s career is the woodworking craftsmanship. Both the thwarts and the gunwales still show marks of being hand-tooled. The thwarts are mortised into the gunwales and the steam-bent cedar frames are tapered, almost “paper-thin where they meet the closed gunwales, where they are fastened with iron nails.” Gerrish also used steel stem bands on the stem of the canoe.

Less helpful in dating the canoe, but still characteristic of Gerrish canoes, are the heart-shaped decks that became a Gerrish trademark, one of which bears the original builder’s plate: “E.H. Gerrish Bangor, Me.”

This particular canoe was well-traveled. Its owner purchased it at an auction in North Carolina.

A New England native, Socker was working in a white-collar job in Florida when his son, now 12, was born.

“South Florida is no place to raise a child,” he said. “We have friends in Camden and had spent vacations there. Within a couple of years, we were here.”

Socker didn’t want another office job, and, being an avid woodworker, looked for work he could do with his hands. The search led him to a local boatyard where his first job was working on an Old Town wood and canvas canoe.

“Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with them,” he said, running his hands along the graceful lines of the Gerrish canoe. “Boy, I love these things.”

Eventually, he ventured out on his own and opened Wooly Willow Canoe Co. Although he does new custom work and repairs a variety of boats, the main focus at the small shop, which is tucked away on a dirt lane off Route 90, is repairing and restoring old wood and canvas canoes.

“I’m a preservationist,” he said. “I like to find an old canoe for someone and restore it. Then I make them sign something promising to take care of it and pass it on.”

Socker pays attention to details down to the last nail. He keeps track of each screw and nail that comes out of a boat, storing each piece on a drilled board, carefully noting its place so that it can, if possible, be returned to its original spot.

“Every screw or nail goes back into the same hole,” he said. “I try to use as many of the original pieces as I can and make it look like it’s not been apart at all.”

For the Gerrish canoe, however, Socker did little restoration work other than replacing the canvas and repairing some previous minor repairs that were done badly. He left the rust stains from the iron nails.

“There’s a slight rack to it; you can see where it’s twisted a little, probably from being stored for a long time,” he said. “I left that alone.”

Replacing the canvas, however, proved to be a bit tricky. Normally, Socker would just remove the gunwales to get at the old canvas. But, with the cane lashings in place, he couldn’t do that. Stiff with age, the lashing held tightly to the gunwales.

A fair amount of WD-40 helped to soften the cane enough so he could pry the gunwale off of the planking and remove the old canvas, then fit the new No. 10 duck into place. One interesting feature of the Gerrish canoe, and another indicator of its age, is that the planking does not come all the way up to meet the gunwales at the stems. With the sweep of this particular canoe, that gap is about four inches or so right at the stem, narrowing until the top plank meets the gunwale.

With the canvas in place and sealed, the only thing remaining for Socker to do was to paint the surface a dark green to match the original paint. Before he returns the canoe to its owner, he plans to take it out for a paddle.

“I want to paddle it. I want to see how fast it is,” he said. “I have this picture of old man Gerrish looking down somewhere and smiling and thinking, ‘There’s something I made and it’s still a canoe; it’s not getting dusty in a museum.'”