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With the family business already dealing in paper boxes, George and Elisha Waters were well positioned to profit from this Age of Paper. But their vision went beyond paper clothes and washbowls.<\/strong> Within months of George premiering his paper mask at the ball, father and son finished building their first paper boat. The Experiment<\/em>, as they christened it, was created by layering sheets of manila paper over a wooden mold. The shell was fitted with a wooden frame and completed with a slathering of waterproofing solution\u2014likely varnish or shellac, although the exact substance remains a mystery. After refining their technique, George and Elisha filed a patent for their paper boat design in June of 1868 and began production soon after. Within four years, E. Waters & Sons was in full swing, with an entire factory dedicated to constructing paper boats.<\/p>\n The E. Waters & Sons paper boat factory, as depicted in The Daily Graphic<\/em>, July 29, 1875. Image courtesy of The Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cThis was right in the boom period of recreational small boating,\u201d says Smith. \u201cPeople were rediscovering the wilderness. Boating in the woods, boating in rivers and streams was suddenly a recreational activity.\u201d<\/p>\n And they were rowing, too. Crew racing was one of the most popular sports in the United States, and by the 1870s the Waters\u2019 light, fast, and easy-to-repair paper racing shells were in high demand by teams throughout the northeast. Even Nathaniel Bishop, a popular adventure writer at the time, was captivated by the idea of a paper boat. While on a year-long canoe trip from Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico he visited the Waters\u2019 factory and became enamored with their boats. Bishop set his cedar canoe aside and commissioned the Waters to build him a paper canoe. He finished his trip almost six months later, his paper canoe still afloat.<\/p>\n E. Waters & Sons continued to grow over the next 20 years, supplying top Ivy League rowing teams with paper boats as well as applying their building techniques to other ventures, including paper life preservers and observatory domes. But despite their early successes, by the end of the 19th century the company was winding down.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the time the company was right in the front of technology, right on the cutting edge,\u201d says Ken Cupery, who compiled a history of the E. Waters & Sons paper boats. But, over time, the Waters faced stiff competition from boat builders who figured out how to make their wooden canoes and shells comparable in their weight, speed, and price.<\/p>\n The cover of the E. Waters & Sons \u201cIllustrated Price List\u201d from 1878 displayed one of the Waters\u2019 well-loved paper boats. Image courtesy of The Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York<\/p><\/div>\n The Waters tried to keep the company afloat, but specializing in paper boats and observatory domes only went so far. Regardless of how much the paper was waterproofed, says Cupery, the canoes became waterlogged and sluggish over time. Even the university rowing teams\u2014once the company\u2019s biggest and most loyal customers\u2014eventually returned to their wooden shells. In the end, E. Waters & Sons closed after George accidentally set the factory ablaze in 1901. While using a blowtorch to add finishing touches to a paper canoe, George ignited a fire that raced out of control, burning the factory to the ground and destroying the company\u2019s entire stock, except for a few boats. The Waters never recovered from the fire, and both George and Elisha died within a few years, their paper canoes largely forgotten.<\/p>\n On a muggy, overcast Saturday in July 2014, a small group of people clusters around the hull of a fiberglass canoe at the North Brooklyn Boat Club. They dip strip after strip of paper into a goopy mixture of glue and water and lay them carefully across the hull of a fiberglass canoe.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty easy technique,\u201d says Jean Barberis, a member of Mare Liberum. Latin for \u201cthe free seas,\u201d Mare Liberum is a group of artists, activists, and boatbuilders that counts among its goals a drive to rekindle New Yorkers\u2019 interest in preserving and exploring the city\u2019s waterways.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is our third day working on this one,\u201d Barberis added. \u201cYou can build a paper boat fast. In seven days, two people can build a paper canoe.\u201d<\/p>\n Three years ago, Barberis and one of Mare Liberum\u2019s founders, Dylan Gauthier, unearthed a copy of adventurer Nathaniel Bishop\u2019s 1878 book, The Voyage of the Paper Canoe<\/em>, while researching traditional boatbuilding techniques. The group had previously built a couple of canoes out of bamboo and this seemed like a great new project. Adapting the Waters\u2019 ideas was simple, according to Barberis. Just like George Waters borrowed a wooden mask for his first mold, Barberis and Gauthier took a store-bought plastic canoe, coated it with a generous layer of cooking spray, and used it as a mold.<\/p>\n Instead of using whole sheets of manila paper like the Waters, these modern boatbuilders wield rolls of craft paper, cut into small strips. From there it\u2019s similar to papier m\u00e2ch\u00e9: dip the paper in watered-down wood glue, lay it on the hull, let it dry, and waterproof with a few coats of shellac or epoxy. While it takes some boatbuilding skills to install the wooden ribs, seating, and framework of the canoe, the spirit of the design is firmly entrenched in the do-it-yourself ethos. The blueprints even include web links to instructions for the more complicated steps.<\/p>\n![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/paper-boats-waters-factory.jpg\")
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