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A home for rowing history

and the NationalRowing Hall

of Fame at Mystic Seaport

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LET HER RUNLike a shell filled with rowers, the

newest display at Mystic Seaport looksbackward to propel the sport ofAmerican rowing inexorably forward.

Rowing is an intimate way to access the water, but

was never meant to entertain. Until the 18th century,

rowing was rarely used for exercise. In triremes and

galleys, pilot gigs and lifeboats, throughout history,

rowing was used for travel, transport, battle and

commerce. “Skill at the oar could mean the difference

between life and death,” said Hart Perry, executive

director of the National Rowing Foundation.

Let Her Run at the G.W. Blunt White Library

comprises photographs, racing shells, medals,

trophies, sheet music and more historic items loaned

by Friends of Rowing History, by the National

Rowing Foundation and from the Museum

collections. The Library space also houses the

National Rowing Hall of Fame.

“The location and siting could not be better. The

Rowing History exhibit is such a detailed one. It tells

a story about American rowing through its history,”

said Perry. “We are delighted that Mystic Seaport is

the repository of a comprehensive exhibition of

artifacts reflecting American rowing history and

of the National Rowing Hall of Fame,” he said.

Tom Weil, a collector, historian and trustee of

Henley’s River & Rowing Museum, loaned a large

percentage of the objects in the exhibition. “I have

collected rowing memorabilia all my life in hope of

finding a museum that would host an ongoing

permanent history of the sport,” Weil said.

For 10 years, England has housed its national

oarsmen’s history in the River & Rowing Museum at

Henley-on-Thames. It attracts more than 90,000

visitors a year and celebrates the past, present and

future of the international sport of rowing, the River

Thames and the historic community of Henley-on-

Thames. As latecomers to a competitive sport that

disdained “professionals,” American rowing historians

and oarsmen have long hankered for a place to call

their own.

Beginning with the formation of the Friends of

Rowing History in 1992, Perry, Weil, Ted English,

Tom and Nellie Mendenhall, Llewellyn Howland,

Peter Vermilya, Bill Miller and others including noted

author and rowing historian Chris Dodd discussed

possible locations for a hall of fame and dedicated

rowing history display.

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But it wasn’t until autumn of 2007,

after three Rowing History Forums that

grew geometrically in attendance, that Hart

Perry and the National Rowing Foundation,

which had assumed responsibility for

the Rowing Hall of Fame, asked the

Museum for space.

And fortuitously, the space became available.

“The initiative came from volunteers who

worked wih our exhibits department,”

said Dana Hewson, vice president of water-

craft preservation at the Museum. Gill Perry

coordinated many volunteers such as Eva

Kovach, women’s coach at Connecticut

College, who gave their strong backs and

elbow grease to the project. Hewson

credited Vice President Paul O’Pecko,

among others, with raising funds to shift

collections from the Blunt Library to the

Rossie Mill facility—thus making room for

the exhibit.

The Museum, Friends of Rowing and

National Rowing Foundation had

co-produced exhibits in the past, and their

missions have always been in synch: to

celebrate and chronicle people and watercraft

in history. For years, Museum goers entering

the Peter Sanger Visitor Reception Center at

the Museum’s entrance have looked up at the

eight–man Martini Achter, a 66-foot long

Empacher-manufactured shell suspended

from the rafters. And every spring, the

Museum welcomes about 60 local high

school rowers who launch shells from its

riverbanks and docks. “For the Museum, the

school crews fit in perfectly,” said Hewson,

because they use the water access for practice

from March through late May.

The popularity of rowing and sculling

continues to blossom in the Museum’s

backyard as well as nationally. Rowing clubs

in the Mystic Seaport area offer masters

programs, such as Mystic River Rowing at

“We are delighted that Mystic Seaport is

the repository of a comprehensive

exhibition of artifactsreflecting American

rowing history and of the National Rowing

Hall of Fame.” – Hart Perry

the YMCA, the Groton Community Boat

Club, and Blood Street Sculls in East Lyme.

At a recent Mystic-area Ergometer

Challenge fundraiser, 119 athletes competed

in age categories from 13 to 72 years old.

Public high schools in Stonington, East

Lyme, Old Lyme and Groton have crews, as

do the nearby Coast Guard Academy and

Connecticut College.

The Fourth Rowing History Forum in

March attracted more than 100 rowers and

historians, many of whom have made rowing

history themselves.

Hart Perry, for instance, was the first

American Henley Steward. And Conny

Kirsch, UMass Aggies Women’s coach, was

recently inducted into the National Rowing

Hall of Fame.

“High school rowing is exploding,” said

Kirsch. Kirsch said the number of high

school girls entering college with solid on-

water training increases each year. When she

brings her crews to the exhibit, Kirsch’s

rowers won’t miss the photos of legendary

women oarsmen, such as Ernestine Bayer,

the founder of the first women’s squad and

her championship competitor daughter

Tina. Notable too is a photo of the U.S.

Women’s Quad Scull posing with Fidel

Castro. A German national, Kirsch said she’s

starting to appreciate the heritage of UMass

rowing history, and looked forward to seeing

the exhibit poster from 1871 that features

the “Farmers’ Boys” of Amherst after their

victory over Harvard and Brown.

“Let Her Run” contains enough English

rowing artifacts to provide neophytes with a

quick grounding in boat racing’s first

modern competitors, but not so much that it

dominates the distinctly American collection.

A large poster displays Thomas Eakins’ 1874

oil painting of a lone sculler, and Life maga-

zine, Colliers and The New Yorker often used

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famous rowers on their covers to catch the

attention of the American public.

In the exhibit, there is also a “Kelly for

Brickwork” t-shirt, a true collector’s item. Jack

Kelly, father of the future Princess Grace of

Monaco, worked as a mason and sculled for exer-

cise. Yet in a 30-minute span at the 1920

Antwerp Olympics, Kelly rowed to victories in

the single and double sculls. Kelly added a third

gold medal in the 1924 Paris Olympics, and

inspired a love of sculling in his son Jack Jr. who

won twice at Henley (1947 and 1949), and took

bronze in the 1956 Melbourne Olympic single

sculls event.

The papers of Tom Mendenhall, (1910-

1998) are also in the Library’s collection as

Mendenhall was the recognized authority on

the history of American collegiate rowing.

Mendenhall wrote The Coming of Sport to the

American College, and A Short History of

Rowing, among other books, papers and

magazine articles.

“You could say this is the Cooperstown

of rowing. It is absolutely thrilling to have

all this history in front of us,” said Bill

Miller, co-curator, as he stood before what is

believed to be the oldest team trophy in

America – a silver pitcher awarded to the

Erie Boat Club in 1837. Not far from it are

the Intercollegiate Rowing Association’s

massive sterling silver Varsity Challenge

Cup and Steward’s Trophy from 1898.

Perched on a high shelf nearby is a small oil

painting. It depicts Lafayette’s 1825 visit to

New York and his row across the Hudson

River to New Jersey. There is a quirky

and interesting section of contemporary

collegiate rowing artifacts. The uniquely

American custom of shirt-betting, Tom

Weil explained, appears to have originated at

Syracuse in the mid-1940s when the losing

crews gave their shirts to the victors.

Tantalizing to historians and social historians

alike may be the exhibit’s evolving nature. A

detailed catalogue is still in the works, and label-

ing of items continues. It’s exciting to see a ded-

icated group of volunteers look ahead to how it

will best share rowing history with an increas-

ingly techno-philic public. But volunteers are

already brainstorming.

“This exhibit is just a beginning,” said

Perry, “the beginning of something very

exciting. We’re looking at all kinds of ideas,

electronic interaction, something to link

between generations.” Some of these ideas

include computer connections to live races,

such as the upcoming Beijing summer

Olympic games, or even the replay of radio

broadcasts such as the 1956 Olympic-eight

victory that David Wight shared with

Forum attendees.

Wight was guest speaker at the forum,

and had rowed seat #2 in the 1956 gold

medal Olympic-eight while a junior at Yale.

He brought his gold medal for all to exam-

ine, and sparkled as he recounted the train-

ing and trials leading up to the Olympics.

Sports news photos memorialized #3 man

John Cooke collapsing onto Wight after

crossing the finish line; “I was John Cooke’s

catcher,” joshed Wight. At the end of his

exciting Olympic narrative, Wight played a

taped radio broadcast of his boat’s victory

race in Melbourne more than half a century

ago. Even if you had never witnessed a boat

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race, the crackly audio broadcast, complete

with 40,000 spectators roaring in the back-

ground, sent chills down your spine.

Hazard Gillespie, who coxed the Yale

crew in the 1930s attended the forum,

as did James and Jeff Pocock and Marj

Martin Burgard. All the forum attendees

contributed in some way to rowing history.

The Pocock family’s handmade racing

shells and oars have been synonymous with

high-quality American racing equipment

for almost 100 years. And Burgard is the

widow of Arthur E. Martin, creator of Alden

recreational sculls and shells.

The Alden line made accessible what

could have been considered an elite sport.

Burgard said it all began as she and Martin

“messed around with boats” during their

summers in the Isles of Shoals, Maine. “We

wanted people to be able to get out onto the

open water and row where they live,” said

Burgard, who raced in a Masters World

Championship-eight with Ernestine Bayer

years ago. “Maybe exercise is supposed to be

painful, but rowing is pleasurable and

smooth and a lifelong sport. Incidentally,

when I turned 70, I thought I’d like to race

at the Head of the Charles,” said Burgard.

(She did. And won her division.) Aldens

opened up the world of rowing to populations

that would never have dipped an oar into

water without a car-top option.

“Recreational rowing is here to stay,” said

Biddle Morris, head of Mystic River Rowing

Association, “the car-top community, kayakers

and boathouse community – you can be a

part of all those with a rowing shell.” All

oarsmen and women, whether competitive

or recreational, draw upon fundamental

human qualities of courage, strength, perse-

verance, teamwork, endurance and will.

Added Kristen Negaard O’Brien, “the rea-

son people are passionate about the sport is

that a crew is greater than the sum of its

parts. It’s not a private journey when you

row – you are only as strong as your weakest

rower, so it’s the drive of a selfless nature.

When you pull correctly, you are the

machine,” said O’Brien, who coaches the

Groton (CT) Community Boating club.

The Let Her Row exhibit and National

Rowing Hall of Fame is an impressive visual

record of what rowing historians, oarsmen,

collectors and chroniclers can do when they

conjure a dream into reality.

Museum President Douglas Teeson, a

recreational sculler, told those at the forum,

“as in a boat, it is inspiring what happens

when you all pull handsomely together.”

“As in a boat, it is inspiring what happens

when you all pull handsomely together.”

– Douglas Teeson

The National Rowing Hall of Fameis one of the many pulls to thisexciting new exhibit at the G.W. Blunt White Library. In thistreasure trove from two centuriesof American rowing history, you’ll also find:

• Massachusetts Agricultural College wonthe first collegiate championship regattain 1871. The winning crew is splashed onthe grandfather of all photographicsports posters in the exhibit.

• An 1825 engraving celebrates the victoryof American Star, a Whitehall boat, overa British naval cutter in New York harbor. More than 50,000 spectatorsturned out for the event.

• The New Yorker has featured rowing onits cover at least seven times; Colliers,Sports Illustrated and Life magazinesported rowers or regattas on their covers many times over the past century.

• The 1836 American edition of Walker’s Manly Exercises was the firstbook to recommend rowing for exerciseand pleasure.

• The two oldest photographs in the exhibit date from 1859. One is an albumen portrait of the Yale Atlanta boat club (Class of 1861); the other is a stereo view of the July 4, 1859 regattain New York harbor.

• The 1881 Yale-Harvard race trophy listsall of the winning crew except thecoxswain – who was the first Chinesestudent at Yale.

• Hibberd V.B. Kline’s stunning 1910 colorlithograph triptych poster, “The LastMile,” originally cost 50 cents.

• An 1837 coin silver presentation pitcherawarded to the Erie Boat Club, victors ina 5-mile race, may be the oldest extantAmerican team trophy.

• The earliest illustration of a boat club, in 1831, is on a sheet music cover in the exhibit.

• Railroads frequently sponsored regattas,and an 1878 railroad poster in the exhibitpublicizes the Cornell-Harvard race. Thebaton that celebrated Cornell’s victory inthat contest is also in the exhibit.

~ With thanks to Tom Weil ~