What makes a vessel historically significant? Of course, the list of attributes will differ in length and substance depending upon who offers an answer. For the celebrated Continental schooner Hannah it is merely the fact of this being the first private vessel offered and accepted by General George Washington for armed service. For whom, in September 1775, the schooner went to sea under Captain Nicholson Broughton with orders to harass British merchant shipping off the coast of Massachusetts. Regardless of that un-earned eminence, the ship has been memorialized in scale models for nearly a century. A few were built to a very high standard of craftsmanship. Not one, as will be argued here, can be viewed as a reliable interpretation of the actual appearance of this small vessel.
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