Dan Antion

A Few Doors from Essex – #ThursdayDoors

JusJoJan
The building dates to 1813 and houses the Thomas A. Stevens Research Library.

Since I’ve asked many of you to experience more from me this week than in most weeks, today I’m just going to share the first few doors I encountered in Essex, Connecticut when I visited two weeks ago. These doors are near, at and within the Connecticut River Museum. In the future, I will share some doors from around the historic port city of Essex.

Today’s post is once again forced to do double duty. As with every Thursday, these doors are being shared as part of Norm Frampton’s weekly fun blogfest, Thursday Doors. Each week, Norm sends out the call for doors from all over the world. To see Norm’s doors, and to find links to other amazing doors, visit Norm’s place.

January is also when Linda G. Hill runs Just Jot January. While I don’t participate every day, and I might normally skip a Thursday, I contributed today’s JusJoJan prompt:

Your prompt for JusJoJan January 16th, 2020, is “experience.” Use the word “experience” any way you’d like. Enjoy!

Please, enjoy both Thursday Doors and JusJoJan.

Since I am back in Classic mode, the images are described in the captions. You can see some of the caption if you hover over the image, or you can step into the carousel slide show by clicking on any image.

It being the off-season, I was able to find parking on the street right across from the museum. This is one of the houses near the water.
This house is directly across from the museum entrance.
Essex, and the nearby towns were shipbuilding sites from the start. From our Revolutionary, through WWI, over 4,000 ships were built on the CT River within a few miles of this port. This marker is where the Oliver Cromwell, a warship built in 1776 was built.
This garage is right above the boat ramp. I’m not sure I’d want to park a car in there.
The building dates to 1813 and houses the Thomas A. Stevens Research Library.
The Connecticut River Museum.
A Compensating Binnacle. The position of the large iron balls was set to compensate for the magnetic interference of the iron in the ship. The ship’s compass is inside the head structure.
Nameplate – Compensating Binnacle.
I think it qualifies as a door of sorts.
Bushnell’s Turtle display offers a fascinating bit of history in this recreation.
Inside Bushnell’s Turtle. Everything, including the ballast pump, and propellers were hand operated by the lone occupant.
This plaque describes the Turtle better than I can. We still build submarines in CT.

76 comments

  3. Love the entry to the library and the stonework. But the celebrity here is the Bushnell Turtle! Fascinating! What an interesting piece of our history. The Compensating Binnacle is equally fascinating. At first glance it looked like what a child would draw for a futuristic robot!

    🐾Ginger 🐾

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    • Thanks Ginger. I was fascinated by the Turtle. Imagine being sealed up inside there, cranking the propellers (forward / back) and (up / Down), drilling a hole in the enemy ship to attach the bomb and then it’s get out of Dodge time! All by hand. This stuff fascinates me.

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  7. Great post, Dan. We were always intrigued by the CSS Hunley in Charleston. Quite a story both on the history and the recovery.

    Have you ever looked at your posts in the WP Reader? Interesting note that the captions appear on top of the images even in Classic mode. Of course Reader does some wonky things to posts when read there.

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  8. Can you imagine getting in that turtle and boring a hole in an English man-o-war? That must have taken courage. Terrific photos of Essex. I noticed the compensating binnacle was made by the Lionel company. I wonder if it is the same as the train folks.

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  11. Old colonial – my favorite style. I love the doors on the red building too. It’s fun when people take something ordinary – garage – and turn it into something photo-worthy. I did windows this week, but have some great doors in store for next week.

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  12. The submarine photos and information was very interesting. I was surprised that there was so much wood used in there. My FIL was a submariner in World War Two. I couldn’t imagine or want to be in a submarine under the water.
    Thanks for the prompt word! Brought out some good memories for me today. :)

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    • Thanks! In that time period, ships were all wood and shipbuilding was a major activity in Essex. They worked with what they had and what they were prepared to work with. At least it’s easier to get wood to float than metal.

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  13. It’s continually interesting to me to see the varying styles of homes in different parts of the country. I expect houses and doors in other countries to be different from ours, but the US being so vast, it’s almost as though there were many different countries. As for the Turtle, it’s a great idea, but I would NOT want to be inside that little thing and underwater!!!

    janet

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    • You’re right about the houses, Janet. I guess they worked with the materials they had and the styles and techniques they were familiar with. I grew up in Pittsburgh and we had way more brick homes that you see up here in New England, and that’s only a day’s drive from here (today).

      I marvel at the craftsmanship in the Turtle, but I wouldn’t want to be the man at the controls.

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  17. It’s so funny to me that most New England structures of earlier days were painted white, severe structures. Maybe it was the provincial times, or best to accommodate climate?

    Sent from my iPad

    >

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  25. (Finally am getting through to your blog – am getting used to it -NOT) How come you don’t have snow? You are so much more North – it has been showing here all afternoon! If I would be weak, I would cave in to believing in climate change, lol! That looks like a (pinkish) pocket door? – I love those kinds of doors – we have one for one of the bathrooms.

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  30. Neat! That Turtle is completely new to me. I don’t recall ever having seen one in person, in a book, anywhere! I love the garage doors, and have long forgotten what it’s like to park in a garage…

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