In the Penobscot Marine Museum’s publication Maine on Glass, authors W.H. Bunting, Kevin Johnson, and Earle G. Shettleworth Jr. recreate the tapestry of early 20th Century Maine by plumbing the museum’s extensive photo archive and telling the stories behind the pictures. Such detective work can be both speculative and entertaining. For “Boat on Truck,” Bunting writes, “The viewer is free to speculate about the backstory of the boat and truck at Blake’s Point on Cape Rosier, in the village of Harborside, in the town of Brooksville. It may help to know that Maine did not start requiring the display of registration numbers on motorboats until 1960, nor would Maine registration numbers begin with ‘K.’” The boat, he surmises, may have been owned by an out-of-stater and shipped to Ellsworth. Maine auto historian Warren Kincaid notes the canopy top is from a pre-1923 touring car, and the truck’s radiator mounting brackets are typical of Sterlings and Packards, circa 1910-14. Still, you have to wonder, what’s that boat doing sitting on a truck? Where is it going and where did it come from? It’s just another one of Maine’s mysteries, captured by a curious photographer.
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“Boat on Truck,” LB 2007.1.104274, is from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport Maine.
