It was a downhill slope from there on. This is particularly painful as George Waters was an amateur photographer and one can imagine boxes of glass plate negatives that disappeared over the years. Rowing history is well documented. The history of rowing shell construction and technology is not, or at least I've not found the right archive. So while I claim to be the world's expert on 19th century paper boats, I admit it's an easy post to attain, as I've yet to find anyone particularly interested.
Most paper history seems to center around watermarks, the printed page, and other lofty subjects.
Paper folk seem almost embarrassed by the thought of practical items like paper boats, flower pots, coffins, and railroad car wheels. The exercise yielded lots of nice letters, a lot of interesting information and memories, and a lot of fun, but little historical information. This was partially inspired by finding a self-teaching tutorial on web pages from Maricopa Community College in Arizona. So here we are. Perhaps someone out there can fill me in on some aspect of the subject.