Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Item
Title
A7863-1
Date(s)
- 1939 (Creation)
Extent
Name of creator
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Scope and content
ca. 1939. Studio portrait of Nepean C. Garrison, noted model shipbuilder, ca. 1939, when he was applying for citizenship. Mr. Garrison had been building ship models since 1929 when the Great Depression struck and carpentry and roadwork opportunities dried up. He was a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and went to sea at an early age, becoming the master of a fishing schooner when he was just 15. Later he served aboard deep water square-riggers. He left the sea and came to Tacoma ca. 1903. He had not forgotten about his younger days in Halifax and his time at sea, however, and now having more time on his hands began carving and whittling models of ships he had known in the past. His reproductions of the clippers, schooners, barks and full-rigged ships, numbering about 30, became well-known and exhibited many times. One of his best known works was a model of the "Flying Cloud," the clipper that had set a record for the passage around the Horn on her maiden voyage. Mr. Garrison worked as a rigger during WWll and died in 1953.
Garrison, N.C.; Hobbyists--Tacoma;