Milton Historical Society opens new shipbuilding exhibit

Over its 200-plus years as a town, Milton has been known for four main industries: boats, buttons, beans and beer.

Milton Historical Society is paying homage to boats and the town’s history of shipbuilding in its new exhibit at the Lydia Cannon Museum called Down to the Sea in Ships: How Schooners, Sailors and Shipwrights Transformed Milton. The exhibit was first previewed to society members April 6 before opening to the public April 12. 

Executive Director DeeDee Wood said the exhibit traces Milton’s shipbuilding industry in the 19th century.

“We get a lot of requests to do shipbuilding history and information, to the point where we knew it would be a popular exhibit,” she said.

Lifelong Miltonian and MHS Board President Jack Hudson said shipbuilding was a cornerstone industry in Milton up until the beginning of the 20th century, when wooden, wind-powered schooners were replaced by steam-engine ships. However, the industry had been on the wane in the late 1800s because the cypress forests surrounding Wagamons Pond had become depleted, Hudson said. He said about a decade ago, the society found one of the ships built in Milton that was still in existence in New England. The society had hoped to get pictures, but that did not come to fruition, and Hudson does not know if the ship still exists.

“The ships built in Milton were not big, three-masted schooners; they were really work ships,” he said. “It was really the lifeblood of Milton when shipbuilding was in its heyday. Once shipbuilding went out, we became a town that was based on agriculture. We had two canneries here. For a time, we were the Lima Bean Capital of the World.”

Wood said this exhibit will include a diorama that will enable users to interact and see locations in Milton relevant to shipbuilding in town. The exhibit also has model ships of the kind that were built in Milton, as well as photographs.

“There’s a lot of visuals with the show this time. We wanted to modernize, with a lot more visuals and less words, because that history is what we get asked about the most,” said Wood, who has been executive director for two years.

All told, the exhibit took a year to research and develop, and about three months to install. Wood said she got the idea for a diorama from seeing one in St. Michaels, Md. 

“Adults like them, children like them. They speak to a lot of different people,” she said.

The exhibit will run until Tuesday, Dec. 31. In addition, Wood said, the museum will feature a mini-exhibit in the main hall showcasing women’s embroidery.

Finally, at the April 6 unveiling, Wood announced that the society had received a $50,000 grant to upgrade its main exhibit hall, although no timetable for renovations has been publicly announced.