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ABOUT THIS BOOK In my love of Great Lakes History and research, one document I searched for was Dr. Richard J. Wright's thesis Adz, Caulk and Rivets. The difficulty was that only two copies of it were available and both had to be called for from university libraries. The thesis was done on a typewriter and bound in hard cover. It turned out to be one of my best sources ever on early Ohio shipbuilding history and an endless resource for me and my co-author, Paula Shorf, the co-author of many of my Great Lakes books, in our continuing research of early Lake Erie history. With that in mind, I felt it would be a great idea to make the thesis into a book, so all who are interested in early shipbuilding, could have a copy on their shelf of required reading to aid in research in this area. Martha Wright Moon was gracious to allow me to put the thesis in book form and make it available to all. We will also deposit it at Great Lakes area libraries and museums, for researchers. Nothing in the wording of Dr. Wright's thesis has been changed and I have kept to his format throughout. The only changes made were setting it to new type using Times New Roman and putting it into a 6" x 9" book format. We added an Index to make searching for names, places and vessels easier. Paula Shorf and I have added biographies on many of the early shipbuilders we have done up over the past several years, to add a little extra to the book, for the reader and researcher. All of us hope you enjoy Dr. Richard Wright's thesis and remember his great contributions to Great Lakes History and Shipbuilding. I would like to personally thank Martha Wright Moon, Gerald Metzler, Robert Graham, Paula Shorf, Albert Doane, Walter Lewis and many, many others who have generously helped me over the years in my pursuit of Great Lakes history. Matthew Weisman This book was compiled and made ready for printing by Matthew Weisman and Paula Shorf, February 2017