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“I am a shipbuilder who has spent his life building beautiful ships. I wanted to carve something that would be different from anything that people could see anywhere else in the world.” —August F. Crabtree
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August F. Crabtree (1905- 1994) was born in Portland, Oregon. The grandson of a Scotsman who had built ships on the River Clyde, he became interested in ships at an early age and built his first model by the age of ten. After seeing a collection of models in Seattle, he was inspired to begin working on the present collection.
He acquired an assistant, Winnifred Clark (1913-2005), who painted the carvings, sewed the sails, and created the tiny strands of rope for the rigging.
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His assistant, Winnifred became his lifelong partner in 1942 when the two were married, and the couple moved back to August’s hometown of Portland. Wishing to do his part to assist in the war effort, August worked in the Kaiser shipyards in Portland as mold loft supervisor. Following the war, August returned to his miniatures and he and Winnifred moved to New York where they completed this collection in 1949.
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After modifying a van to carry the collection, Crabtree embarked on a tour of the East Coast and Midwest exhibiting the ships in store windows. This method of display proved too hazardous and was quickly abandoned.
In 1950, the Crabtrees settled in Florida and built a small museum. Finding this enterprise burdensome, they decided to permanently relocate their beloved ships—and themselves—to The Mariners’ Museum in 1956. |
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