Of all the historic archival material that survives in the collections at HMM, the majority of it has come to the museum through descendants of Nathanael Greene Herreshoff (1848-1938), father and grandfather of two of HMM's founders, A. Sidney Herreshoff (1886-1977) and Halsey C. Herreshoff (b. 1933). We have much less historic material in the collection, comparatively, from descendants of Captain Nat's older brother and business partner at HMCo., John Brown Herreshoff (1841-1915). Partly this may be due to the fact that J.B.H. only had one child to Captain Nat's six - and all six produced extensive correspondence, thousands of photographs, and hundreds of drawings and journals that have been donated to the museum over time. When considering significant artifacts from J.B.H.'s family line, it is worth noting that there are two remarkably original and well-preserved dinghies in the HMM collection, GEM and JACK, that were built for and used by Katherine (Katie) and her two daughters, Louise H. DeWolf (1898-1986), and Katherine DeWolf Pendlebury (1897-1990). Both dinghies occasionally served as floating platforms in the creation of the single largest repository of material that we do have from J.B.H.'s line at HMM: an extensive collection of hundreds of glass plate negatives that were made by his daughter, Katherine Kilton Herreshoff DeWolf (1871-1954). These are a very significant part of the HMM collections today and have featured prominently in exhibits and museum publications over the decades. Unfortunately, there is relatively little correspondence and other material outside of that collection.

Because the historical narrative from the perspective of J.B.H.'s line is underrepresented in the HMM collections today, and most of the stories we tell center around N.G.H. simply because we have so much more archival material relating to him and his direct descendants, we are always interested to share perspectives from other family branches where they do exist. The following essay written by Louise H. DeWolf about her grandfather John Brown Herreshoff is a great example. It was published in a 1969 issue of "The Rhode Island Yearbook," and is an admittedly romantic take - the recollections of someone in their 70s writing about a grandfather who had died more than fifty years earlier, and without the benefit of modern digitized newspapers or databases to double check dates and facts - but it is still a charming read from a less-often heard perspective within the Herreshoff family tree that we are pleased to share with you today, courtesy of the Rhode Island Historical Society.

Click here to read Louise H. DeWolf's 1969 essay about John Brown Herreshoff, courtesy of the Rhode Island Historical Society, and scroll below to see a few additional photos of people, places and boats mentioned in the article.