The Six-Year Labor of the 'State of Washington'
A Port Madison artisan spends half a decade hand-crafting a scale model ship, turning ivory, gold, and silk into a $2,500 masterpiece.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
In the window of Kellogg’s drug store there is on exhibition a model of a bark which is a monument to the skill and patience of its constructor, Thornwold Olsen, of Port Madison. He spent the spare time of six long years in the work. Just think of it: the evenings and often half of the nights during a period of six years spent in fashioning and finishing this little craft, which is not more than three and a half feet in length. What marvelous patience Olsen must have possessed! How many are there who would have stuck to a self-imposed task so long.
Gold, silver, silk, ivory, black walnut and ash were used in the construction of the miniature bark which has been christened the 'State of Washington.' The sheets and braces are of silk, the blocks of ivory, the shrouds, stays, anchors, chains and bands silver, and the compass, capstan, bell and some other fittings of gold, the hull of black walnut and the deck of ash. The model of the hull is European, rather than American, but the ensemble is as near perfection as skill and patience can make it. Maritime men pronounce the 'State of Washington' as pretty a model as they ever saw. Mr. Olsen values the bark at $2,500.
“What marvelous patience Olsen must have possessed! How many are there who would have stuck to a self-imposed task so long.”
Olsen’s obsession with creating a physical object of extreme quality during his 'spare time' resonates with the modern maker culture in Seattle. While today we look for efficiency, this artifact reminds us of the Victorian-era commitment to painstaking manual craft that defined the Pacific Northwest's early maritime identity.
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