The Pilot Model
Our family has a scale model of the Barque Pilot, the ship which Joseph Hartwell captained on his final trading voyage to the Pacific. According to family legend, it was built his brother Daniel, along with a second ship model for the Brig Gambia, the other ship that Joseph captained to the South Sea Islands. The story goes that both ship models were "tried out" in Salem Harbor to see if they would float, and then put into their cases.
The Pilot model was passed down in the family to William Henry Hartwell, to Allen Augustus Hartwell, to William Henry Hartwell, to George Ellis Hartwell and currently resides in the home of his son Peter David Hartwell. The Pilot model almost met its match in the 1938 hurricane. It was stored in the attic of the Hartwell home in Milford, MA at the time. According to the story, the family had to evacuate their house because of the hurricane, but Granddaddy (Allen Augustus) ran back and rescued the model. Soon after, the roof blew off the house!
The Gambia model has yet to be found. Supposedly it was given to the Essex Institute in Salem, which later was merged into the Peabody Essex Museum. I inquired some years ago, and the PEM did not have a record of the Gambia. Was the Gambia story a fable, or does the model still exist in a dark corner of a storage room somewhere?
The Pilot model was passed down in the family to William Henry Hartwell, to Allen Augustus Hartwell, to William Henry Hartwell, to George Ellis Hartwell and currently resides in the home of his son Peter David Hartwell. The Pilot model almost met its match in the 1938 hurricane. It was stored in the attic of the Hartwell home in Milford, MA at the time. According to the story, the family had to evacuate their house because of the hurricane, but Granddaddy (Allen Augustus) ran back and rescued the model. Soon after, the roof blew off the house!
The Gambia model has yet to be found. Supposedly it was given to the Essex Institute in Salem, which later was merged into the Peabody Essex Museum. I inquired some years ago, and the PEM did not have a record of the Gambia. Was the Gambia story a fable, or does the model still exist in a dark corner of a storage room somewhere?
The Pilot ship model in its case, in the home of George Hartwell, circa 2000.
Photographs of the Pilot, taken by Peter Hartwell in December 2005
The Pilot Ship Model in 1939 at 30 Bagdad Road in Durham, New Hampshire,
with Priscilla and George Hartwell and their mother Beatrice, wife of William Henry Hartwell
