Linwood museum donates items, Sindia model, to S.P. Museum
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff
A scale model of the Sindia, a ship that sank off of Ocean City, was part of the Linwood Maritime Museum, which lost its home in the former Crestlea Park School on Davis Avenue. The items from the museum will be on display following a lot of shuffling of existing exhibits and construction of a new display space in the Somers Point Historical Museum.
SOMERS POINT — Somers Point Historical Museum Director Sally Hastings said the collection of artifacts it recently received from the Linwood Maritime Museum is a welcome addition to the museum’s display.
“It enhances the museum and it gives a lot more dimension and variety to what we have,” she said.
The Somers Point Historical Museum is located in the city’s former Baptist church, built in 1886, on Shore Road. It is the city’s fifth-oldest building still standing, Hastings said.
The artifacts include tools from Linwood shipwrights, watermen and seamen from the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as a large collection of model ships in custom-made display cases. The items include dead eyes, pulleys, needles to make fishing nets, fishing reels from the 1920s and a 1930s garvey built at a home off Shore Road.
The artifacts added about 20 percent to 25 percent to the number of items the museum now has but will take up about 40 percent of the space, Hastings said.
The Somers Point Historical Museum is located on Shore Road in a former Baptist church built in 1886. It is the city’s fifth-oldest existing building.
She said the museum received 11 ship models in large display cases. Five will be on display at Shore Medical Center, while the six models that will be on display at the museum include:
— A model of the Sindia, , a 329-foot, four-masted sailing barque owned by John D. Rockefeller that foundered and struck a sandbar Dec. 15, 1901, 300 feet from shore off 17th Street in Ocean City; another is at the Ocean City Historical Museum.
— A Liberty ship from World War II, used to transport cargo, tanks, ammunition and other gear but not troops. She said that is important because 386 men and women from Somers Point served in WWII.
— A schooner. Hastings said schooners were built at shipyard right on Shore Road.
— A motorized boat from the 1950s and 1960s similar to those built by some builders in Somers Point.
— A sloop, similar to those built in the city.
— A ketch, similar to the Intrepid, the fire ship that Richard Somers was aboard when it exploded off Libya.
— A Spanish barque — “it is interesting with all of the masts and to show the types of ships that traveled all around the world,” she said.
Hastings said all of the tools received from the Linwood Maritime Museum will be placed in a corner display currently under construction.
“We are going to make it a working workshop, so someone can come in and actually demonstrate using the old tools,” Hastings said, adding that they may move a television screen to the display so they could show scenes of early shipbuilding and the tools’ purpose.
Hastings said there are nine display cases that were mounted on the wall in the Linwood museum and they would try to replicate the displays.
“We’re working front to back and we are going to be able to keep our original display cases of the local history. They are going to be able to stay intact,” Hastings said.
The museum also received a 1930s garvey built by Linwood resident Mark Sutton that she called “very rare.” It will be displayed in a plexiglass container in front of the museum.
Hastings said the museum plans to use a lot of the display cases in different ways.
“A bunch of display cabinets from the Linwood Library were disassembled but cannot be reassembled in Somers Point’s space because they were too large, so they took the doors off and we are going to use the doors and two walls will have built-in glass cabinets,” she said, adding that they also will use a bookcase from the bottom of one display case, which she said were each 7.5 feet tall and 8 feet wide.
Somers Point Councilman Carl D’Adamo said the museum now has a model of the Sindia and a 100-year-old rug that was on the ship. The Sindia, a 329-foot, four-masted sailing barque owned by John D. Rockefeller, foundered and struck a sandbar Dec. 15, 1901, 300 feet from shore off 17th Street in Ocean City.
Onboard the ship was silk, porcelain and camphor that was to be sold in New York City.
The ship first left Bayonne and sailed to Shanghai, China, and Kobe, Japan. It was en route to New York from Japan when it ran aground.
Linwood historian Carolyn Patterson said many of the ship captains who lived in Linwood kept their boats in Somers Point, “so there’s really a historical connection between our two towns. We can say we moved all of our items from Linwood to Somers Point, where their ships were. It’s not what we want but was the best thing we could do for all of the donations given to us 20 to 30 years ago.”