Gardner Boat Mallet

by Fishermen’s Voice Staff

The mallet in the photo was made by John Gardner, who left it to former fellow Mystic Seaport wooden ship builder Jeff Pearson who had helped Gardner sell his tools after retiring. Pearson sells old tools in Searsport, Maine.

Hundreds of ships and boats were built every year in dozens of New England coastal towns until the early 20th century. The center of town was often across from the waterfront where hundreds were employed in the construction of what might have been several wooden ships at a time. Absent the roar of motor vehicle engines and the hum of tires on pavement the ring of ship mallets on caulking irons could be heard throughout town.

Little known in the day of steel or fiberglass hulls, the ship mallet and the slightly smaller boat mallet were the tools used to hammer the caulking iron that drove cotton into the seams between the wood planks. Slots cut into the face of the mallet head helped absorb shock. They also amplified the sound the tool made on the metal caulking iron and produced a ring tone that told the boat builder when the cotton was adequately compressed.

Then head of the tool was often made of black mesquite, a very dense wood. The handles were maple. Metal reinforcement rings of a specific hardness and size were pressed over the ends of the mallet head.

The mallet in this photo was made by boat designer and builder John Gardner.

John Gardner (1905–1995)was born in Calais, Maine. He was a historian of water craft, a writer, a labor organizer, and a designer and builder of wooden boats. From 1969 to 1995 he was Associate Curator of Small Craft at Mystic Seaport Museum, Connecticut. Gardner was technical editor of National Fisherman magazine. He was called the “Dean of American Small Craft” and the father of the modern wooden boat revival. His work in marine history and in analyzing traditional boat designs preserved many classic small craft designs from being lost. He is honored by the Traditional Small Craft Association through its John Gardner Fund.

A graduate from Calais Academy, Maine in the class of 1923, Gardner studied to be a teacher at Machias Normal School, Maine and received a Master’s Degree from The Teacher’s College at Columbia University in 1932. He was the author of seven books on building small boats.

Mr. Gardner, as founder and longtime director of the boat-building classes at the museum, taught thousands of people to build small wood boats with 19th-century methods. A venerated figure, he was known to his colleagues for his encyclopedic knowledge of world history and his extensive vocabulary.

Gardner died in October, 1995 at his daughter’s home in Haverhill, MA. He was 90 and had retired two months earlier.