In 1858 the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable was laid, at great expense after many years of work. Minnesota, while still very much on the frontier, was that same year petitioning for statehood, and Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas also met that summer for their seven famous senatorial election debates on the issue of slavery. In that same year in Orono, Maine, the firm of Shaw and Tenney began making high quality oars and paddles at a shop on the Penobscot River, helping to propel thousands of small boats during a time when skiffs, peapods and canoes were vessels of commerce.

Within three weeks the trans-Atlantic cable had failed, corroded by the sea. By the end of the year Minnesota was admitted to the Union, a fact that would bear on the coming Civil War, and in that same autumn Abraham Lincoln would lose the Senate race to Douglas. But the debates catapulted him to national prominence, and the two were to meet again in the 1860 Presidential run, which Lincoln would surprisingly win, and the issues that he had so eloquently discussed in 1858 would nearly rend the nation into two.

Meanwhile, Shaw and Tenney continued with the business of making high quality oars and paddles – and continued, and continued – and today, 145 years hence, the firm is still making the same products, using virtually unchanged designs.

“There are faster ways of making oars and paddles, and there are easier ways,” states the company brochure, “but we believe there is no better way to make them.” Epoxy is not used at all, and production relies on time-tested blade forms, the highest quality spruce and ash (with other woods available by request), labor-intensive hand sanding and shaping, and careful dip-tank finishing. The spruce and ash stock is meticulously selected, with tight straight grain, and harvested locally in Maine.

“We try to get everything from Maine because it’s just the smart thing to do, easier to get good quality, and comes from sources we know,” says owner Paul Reagan. While the cherry and sassafras for custom orders is not from Maine, it keeps to the same high standards. In a departure from most production paddles, none of the blades or handles is glued up, instead being shaped from solid wood.

Paul and Helen Reagan bought the firm nearly 25 years ago, and continue to run things today, handling not only the orders and bookwork, but sanding, shaping and finishing products daily. Manufacture continues in the same shop where it always has, utilizing much of the same machinery and techniques. Demand has remained steady, with Paul and Helen seeing little change over that time.

“Not too many ups and downs in this business,” he says, “but lately we do seem to be getting more and more orders out of California and the Great Lakes, although we are not completely sure why.” Advertisement is minimal, but those who seek a pair of fine oars or a light paddle seem to know how to find their way up the Penobscot.

In addition to producing five stock canoe paddles, and standard flat blade oars in any length, Shaw and Tenney makes a number of specialty items, including spoon blade oars for pulling boats, St. Lawrence skiff oars fit to drop over a single pin, Herreshoff designed double bladed paddles for kayaks, long duck boat sculling oars, and square loom Adirondack guideboat oars.

The company does a number of custom orders each year, producing exceptionally long racing oars for U.S. Coast Guard Monomoy lifeboat racing competitions and even Venetian gondola sculling oars. The first oars made to this pattern went to Little Italy in the Tokyo Disneyland, and others have even gone to the Venetian Casino in Las Vegas. The gondola oars are not the only Shaw and Tenney product in the land of the Rising Sun, with an order just going out the door for a transplanted New Englander in Japan who had hand built his own rowing boat, and would settle for nothing less than the right oars to go with it. “The shipping was almost as much as the order,” says Paul.

The shop applies the same high standards to making foot-long fraternity and sorority paddles, to be signed by members of each house. With the University of Maine right up the street, there is a steady demand for these items. Rounding out the catalog, and all finished with the same care and skill as the paddles, are small paddles and canoes usually used as trophies for canoe races, tapered boathooks, hard-to-find bronze rowing hardware, caned folding canoe seats and backrests, and split-ash pack baskets.

Despite working with oars and paddles all day, there is nothing more that Helen and Paul like to do on a weekend than go canoeing at their camp up north, where, as Paul put it, “You don’t have to look far for a good paddle.” Shaw and Tenney has no plans to change anything anytime soon. Visit the shop at 20 Water Street in Orono, call 1-800-240-4867, or visit Shaw and Tenney’s website, which is located at .