Capt. Enys’s Canoe

Last month the Revlist brought news that the National Maritime Museum of Cornwall, England, is conserving an eighteenth-century birchbark canoe, perhaps the oldest in existence. The photograph above comes from the museum. Here‘s the Globe and Mail’s report with another, less buoyant view of the vessel.

This canoe appears to have been shipped back to the family estate in southern England by Lt. John Enys of the 29th Regiment of Foot. Born in 1757, Enys joined that regiment in 1775 in time to fight against the American invasion of Canada. He ranked as a lieutenant through the war. At the end, he was promoted to captain and stationed on the Niagara frontier. I suspect that was when he had the most time to think about acquiring a canoe.

The news stories touted this boat as a new discovery, but the canoe bobs up in a footnote of the 1976 edition of Enys’s journals about life in America. Family tradition said he had acquired it in Canada and had it transported to the Hudson. I’m not sure that makes geographic sense; wouldn’t he have sent it along the St. Lawrence? In any event, it’s in Cornwall now.