ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 2, 1996 TAG: 9606030095
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
WORK ON THE GOVERNOR HENRY was begun in February by the Roanoke-Staunton River Batteau Society. The true test will come June 15, when the boat travels 120 miles from Lynchburg to Powhatan County, captained by Paul Thomas.
You'd have thought it was fixing to rain for a month, the way those folk in Franklin County were so eager to get working on their big wooden boat Saturday morning.
But the sun was shining, and the Roanoke-Staunton River Batteau Society was preparing for a festival, not a flood, as they put the finishing touches on the Governor Henry.
"This is a part of our local history that nobody knows anything about," said Lynn Ward, one of the founding members of the society, which is preparing for the James River Batteau Festival.
Few of the society's three dozen members knew anything about batteaux when they began construction of the Governor Henry in February. But now, a week before the festival, they all can recite the history.
The wooden boats, built of rough lumber, were widely used in Western Virginia in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to transport tobacco and other goods. The advent of the railroads meant the boats were no longer needed, but there's some evidence that the wooden craft were pressed back into service during the Civil War, when Union troops tore up the railroads.
The Governor Henry will be one of more than 20 wooden boats participating in the eight-day James River festival, which begins June 15. The boat will travel 120 miles from Lynchburg to Powhatan County, captained by Paul Thomas, a Franklin County furniture maker who was named to his new naval post - without his consent, he said with a laugh - because he was in the Coast Guard 25 years ago.
"When you press a crew into service in Franklin County, you don't get a whole lot of experience," Thomas said.
The batteau is 45 feet long and 7 feet wide. It weighs 3,000 pounds dry, 4,800 wet. From the waterline down, the boat is white oak. Above water, it's poplar. The lumber and nails - forged by a local blacksmith - cost about $3,000, but the boat was underwritten by the Roanoke law firm Gentry Locke Rakes and Moore, and some building materials were donated by other local companies.
Relatively little is known about the construction of batteaux; there were no building plans for the society to follow as it constructed the Governor Henry. Partial skeletons of several batteaux were unearthed in Richmond a decade ago, giving the builders some feel for basic form. But the rest is "interpretation and artistic license," Thomas said.
But the Franklin County crew does have to follow the festival's authenticity rules, which prohibit the use of any synthetic materials in the boat. No foam, no plastic - nothing that boatmakers of the 1700s wouldn't have used.
"If they'd had Saran Wrap, we'd be in fat city right now," said Thomas, eyeing the boat. "We'd have it wrapped all over this thing."
Instead, they'll stuff the cracks between the planks with cotton. When the wood gets wet, the boards will swell together, trapping the cotton packing between them and - the crew hopes - making the craft watertight.
"This is all theoretical, you understand," crewman Bob Hughes said. "We'll know for sure when we stick it in the water.
"But we've seen pictures of some of the other boats. Honestly, it looks like you could throw a cat through them," he said, holding his hands several inches apart to illustrate - in exaggeration - how big the cracks were. "But they float."
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. Volunteers turn the Governor Henryby CNBupside down while preparing for the James River Batteau Festival.
color.