Weathervane Wednesday ~ A collection of weather vanes at a living history museum

Weathervane Wednesday is an on-going series of photographs I post weekly.  I started out by publishing only weather vanes from the Londonderry area, but now I've been finding interesting weather vanes from all over New England.  Sometimes these weather vanes are whimsical, or historical, but all are very unique.  Often, my readers tip me off to some very special and unusual weather vanes.

Today's weather vanes are located in Connecticut.

Do you know the location of the 3 weather vanes for post #267  Scroll down to see the answer...

Weathervane #1

All three of these weather vanes were photographed at Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut.  This first one is a two dimensional sailing ship above the Maritime Art Gallery by the Visitor Center.  You can visit this shop and see this weathervane without paying admission since it is outside of the museum proper.  Mystic Seaport is a living history museum depicting life in a seaside New England village.  It is the largest maritime museum in the world with over 60 original buildings, and several wooden sailing ships including the Charles W. Morgan whaler, the Joseph Conrad training ship, the Amistad slave ship, and the L. A. Dunton fishing schooner.

Weathervane #2

This second weathervane is atop a sundial sculpture near the planetarium at Mystic Seaport.  Inside the orb are markings to tell time, and the sign below gives instructions for adjustments for Eastern standard time.  

Weathervane #3

 This third weathervane is a two dimensional Whale located on the sail loft building near the Charles W. Morgan, which is the last surviving wooden whaling ship.  I like this one because my 2nd great grandfather worked in a sail loft as a sail maker before he became the deputy custom collector in Salem, Massachusetts.  It reminds me of my maritime heritage.

Mystic Seaport Museum website  http://www.mysticseaport.org/

Click here to see all the previous Weathervane Wednesday posts!

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Weathervane Wednesday ~  A collection of weather vanes at a living history museum", Nutfield Genealogy, posted June 29, 2016,  (  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/06/weathervane-wednesday-collection-of.html: accessed [access date]).

The Mayflower II under renovation at the Mystic Seaport Shipyard

The Mayflower II undergoing repair at the shipyard at the Mystic Seaport Museum

Anyone visiting the wonderful museum at Mystic, Connecticut called Mystic Seaport can see the Mayflower II at the Henry B. DuPont Preservation shipyard undergoing repairs.  This is the historic vessel preservation shipyard in New England.  However, this weekend a small group of lucky members of the Plimoth Plantation Museum (home of the Mayflower II) were able to tour inside the ship while it was under renovations!

Here we are next to Mayflower II

Genealogy blogger June Butka joined us for this very special tour.  Tickets for this event were sold out weeks ago.  We met up with the tour at the Mystic Seaport visitor center and headed over to the shipyard where we heard from Quentin Snedicker of Mystic, and from Whit Perry, the associate director of the Mayflower II maritime preservation project for Plimoth Plantation, and also from Richard Pickering, the deputy director of Plimoth Plantation, about the repairs underway on the Mayflower. 

I wrote about a tour we did with Plimoth Plantation of the Mayflower II when she was in drydock inFairhaven in 2014.  Some of those repairs were found to be inadequate when Mayflower II was in Mystic's shipyard for a short time in 2015.  The new plan is for a complete restoration of the ship at a total cost of $9 million.  This will make the Mayflower II seaworthy, and authentically restored according to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Historic Vessel Preservation Projects.  Unfortunately, these massive repairs, which include the keel, might take as long as 30 to 36 months.  The plan is to have her returned to her berth in Plymouth harbor in time for the 400^th anniversary of her famous voyage in 1620.

Vincent and June board the Mayflower II 

Notice that the artisans are using traditional wooden tools

New beams installed on the rear half deck 

The Mayflower II was a gift from England to the United States in 1957.  It was a “thank you” for assistance from the US during World War II.  Since 1957 about 25 million people have visited the Mayflower II in Plymouth and in other ports.  This June Mayflower II will return briefly to Plymouth harbor for the summer season, but the real renovation work will begin next fall back in Mystic.  

42 members joined Mystic Seaport staff for this tour, and see how crowded we were?
Imagine 102 passengers in this space in 1620, plus pigs, chickens and 2 dogs,
plus all their belongings and the shallop! For a 66 day journey! 

Below deck you can see new wood joined with wood
from the original 1957 shipbuilders.

Below deck, where the Mayflower Pilgrims stayed during the 1620 voyage,
Whit Perry describes the 1957 ship and her current renovations.

Mayflower II will be pulled out of the water and raised up in drydock where the Amistad (another famous ship from American history) now stands in the shipyard.  Then the most crucial and extensive repair works will begin and last through 2018 or 2019.  This extensive work means that she will not be available to view in Plymouth, but you can keep tabs on her by visiting Mystic Seaport Museum. 

Quentin Snedicker of Mystic Seaport describes the overhaul, standing next to the Amistad in drydock

If you would like to attend a project update about the Mayflower II, Plimoth Plantation's Executive Director Ellie Donovan is holding a meeting on Thursday, May 12th from 6:30 to 7:30pm at the Plimoth Plantation Visitor Center.  Coffee and cookies will be served.  See this announcement online http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=f3c74e7836&id=56d62792cd&e=8cf6024ba3   

Vincent and I enjoyed our wonderful tour of the preservation project

of Mayflower II ongoing at the Mystic Seaport shipyard

You can help keep Mayflower II afloat!  Every gift makes a difference!

Write a check to the Development Office, Plimoth Plantation, PO Box 1620, Plymouth, MA 02362

Make a donation by credit card at www.plimoth.org or call the development office at 508-746-1622 (ext. 8226)

Richard Pickering, Deputy Director at Plimoth Plantation
gave a passionate speech to us during lunch.  

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For the truly curious:

Watch a video of the restoration of Mayflower II at Mystic Seaport   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-KVZ_dhH1M 

Read my blog post about seeing Mayflower II in drydock in Fairhaven in 2013, when the extent of the repair work needed was discovered by the preservation crew:

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/05/touring-mayflower-ii-in-drydock.html 

Plimoth Plantation webpage for Mayflower II  http://www.plimoth.org/what-see-do/mayflower-ii

The webpage for donations towards Mayflower II restoration  https://plimothplantation.cloverdonations.com/save-our-ship/

 

Old tools and new tools being used by the
preservation crew at Mystic shipyard

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Thank you to June Stearns Butka for some of the photography! 

Published under a Creative Commons License

Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "The Mayflower II under renovation at the Mystic Seaport Shipyard", Nutfield Genealogy, posted May 9, 2016, (  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-mayflower-ii-under-renovation-at.html:  accessed [access date]).

Surname Saturday ~ COLVER of Connecticut

COLVER

Edward Colver was a signer of “The Covenant” that formed Dedham, Massachusetts in 1636.  He was a wheelwright and was granted two acres in 1637.  He took part in the Pequot War that same year. Edward was a talented Indian scout, and it is thought that King Uncas named his own son after Colver’s son, Joshua.  For this military service Edward Colver received two more grants of land, two hundred acres in 1652/3 and four hundred acres in 1654 near the head of the Mystic River in Connecticut.

Edward Colver removed to Connecticut where he helped the Winthrops build a fort at Saybrook.  He bought a lot from Robert Burrows in Pequot around 1653, and that same year was granted land as “Goodman Colver”.   In Mystic he built a grist mill.  The Winthrop family also ran a grist mill nearby, and twice sued for Colver’s land. 

By 1675 the settlers were again fighting the native Indians in King Phillip’s War.  Edward Colver was elderly but he went out to fight in the Great Swamp Fight near Tiverton, Rhode Island with his sons.  He was the only man with experience from the previous war.  Frederic Lathrop Colver stated it was Edward, the settler who fought, but Donald Lines Jacobus stated it was more likely to have been Edward, Jr.

Edward Colver died in 1685 in Mystic, having deed his lands to his sons.  He and his wife, Ann, are buried with a small headstone with the rough initials E. C on one side and A. C on the other.   His house was known as “Chepados”  (a native Indian word for an intersection in trails) and it is still standing at 279 Ledyard Highway, Mystic, Connecticut.

Click here to see a photograph of Chepados  http://173.254.28.14/~collvero/family/doc/chepados_04.html

For more information on Edward Colver:

Colver-Culver Family Genealogy as Descended from Edward Colver of Groton, Connecticut to the Thirteenth Generations in America, by Valerie Dyer Giorgi, Santa Monica, California: privately published, 1984.

The Town of Dedham, by Don Gleason Hill, Dedham, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1886, Volume 3. (available to read online at www.archive.org )

Public Records of Connecticut, 1665 – 1677, Volume 2, pages 408 and 417.  (Internet Archive has these to read online, see this link: http://www.colonialct.uconn.edu/ )

Genealogy:

Generation 1: Edward Colver, born about 1610 in England, died 1685 in Mystic, Connecticut; married on 19 September 1638 in Dedham, Massachusetts to Ann Ellis, daughter of John Ellis. Nine children.

Generation 2: Mary Colver, born 4 November 1652 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, died 1731; married on 14 December 1670 in New London, Connecticut to John Burrows, son of Robert Burrows and Mary Unknown. Nine children.

Generation 3:  John Burrows m. Lydia Hubbard,

Generation 4:  Desire Burris m. Moses Gore

Generation 5:  Desire Gore m. Thomas Ratchford.

Generation 6: Elizabeth Ratchford m. David Lyons

Generation 7: Thomas Ratchford Lyons m. Ann Skinner

Generation 8: Isabella Lyons m. Rev. Ingraham Ebenezer Bill

Generation 9: Caleb Rand Bill m. Ann Margaret Bollman

Generation 10: Isabella Lyons Bill m. Albert Munroe Wilkinson

Generation 11: Donald Munroe Wilkinson m. Bertha Louise Roberts

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The URL for this blog post is
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/10/surname-saturday-colver-of-connecticut.html

Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo