Catalog entry

Commentary

Local legend has it that the first dory was built in Simeon Lowell’s boat shop in  1793, but was called a “wherry” by its builder. The term “dory” was applied later, perhaps to a refined version which we know today as a “banks dory.” What came to be known as a wherry in later years was probably a wider version of the banks dory. This is what we see in Lane’s drawing, the stern having a markedly wider transom, or “tombstone” as called by fishermen. The wherry’s flat bottom would also have been wider in proportion. (1)

To judge from Lane’s work, a wherry was an uncommon sight in his time. Only this drawing and two paintings offer recognizable examples. In The Fort and Ten Pound Island, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1847 (inv. 271), we see a wherry bow-on in the center foreground, showing the wide tombstone. In Becalmed Off Halfway Rock, 1860 (inv. 344), a wherry loaded with a gill net is towed by a pinky in company with a banks-style dory. The wherry’s larger size suggests its use in the shore fisheries, transporting nets for fish traps and gill-netting with the dory along for helping to set and tend the gear.

The term “wherry” has been applied to several other vessel types of small to medium size, most commonly in Europe. (2)

–Erik Ronnberg

References:

1. John Gardner, “The Dory Book” (Camden, ME: International Marine Publishing Co., 1978), pp. 25-31.

2. M. H. Parry et al., “Aak to Zumbra: A Dictionary of the World’s Watercraft” (Newport News, VA: The Mariners’ Museum, 2000), pp. 177, 634.