My wife, Linda, and I visited Mabee Farm last week for the first time this year. As part of a week-long celebration of the Erie Canal there was a Revolutionary War reenactment scheduled, including a recreated cavalry unit which we had not seen before, so we were excited about getting out to the farm. Mabee farm is located on the south bank of the Mohawk river west of Schenectedy. The farm is the oldest remaining farm in the Mohawk valley, dating back to before 1700. As it is brick, it survived the Loyalist raiding parties that scorched much of the Mohawk valley during the war when England was trying to capture or destroy the food supplies the Colonists depended on.

As we walked around the grounds, visiting the blacksmith’s shop where I took a class last year, we noticed a large pole barn where none had been before! Hoping that we both were not addled enough to have forgotten such an obvious feature, we walked over to see if the barn held anything of interest. Inside the barn was a ship! (Or at least enough of one to recognize it.) People in navy blue tee-shirts were busy measuring patterns, cutting out frame timbers, hauling them in and out of the ship checking them for fit, and finally fastening them into place.

I have been lucky enough to visit H.M.S. Victory in Portsmouth, UK and U.S.S. Constellation in Baltimore, MD, but I had never seen a wooden ship under construction. Linda and I were fascinated and were drawn to an information table set up outside the ship-shed. We quickly learned that before us was a replica of the Onrust, the first ship ever built in New York. The Onrust was built by Captain Adriaen Block in 1614 at the end of Manhattan after his original ship the Tyger burned at anchor. Onrust means “Restless” in Dutch and this must have been the chief emotion felt by Captain Block and his crew, as they built the Onrust in four months in order to complete their program of exploration up and down the coast of New England and its inland rivers.

We learned that volunteers of any skill level are welcome, and that volunteers are welcome whether they can put in one hour a month or forty hours a week. On this side of the Atlantic, Don Rittner and Greta Wagle formed a non-profit organization called New Netherlands Routes to fund the project. From Holland, Gerald de Weerdt, Director of the Maritime Museum in the Netherlands and former director of the National Institute of Ship Archaeology in Lelystadt, NL is the shipwright responsible for the design and reconstruction of the Onrust. Construction started in 2006, and the Onrust is on schedule to be completed in 2009 for the Albany quadricentennial.

Linda and I imagined seeing the Onrust sailing on the Mohawk and the Hudson, her native waters, and were filled with a determination to be a part of this effort. We both want to be able to point offshore one day and say “I helped build that!.” We left our contact information with Greta Wagle and promised to get back in touch real soon …