Welcome, the Old Town canoe with serial number 4905 is a 17 foot long, CS (common sense or middle) grade, HW (heavy water) model with no keel, maple decks, maple thwarts, maple seats, closed spruce gunwales, and spruce outside rails. It was built between June and July, 1906. The original exterior paint color was N. H. (New Haven Railroad) green. It shipped on July 18th, 1906 to Norcross, Maine. A scan of this build record can be found by following the link at the attached thumbnail image below.
This scan and several hundred thousand more were created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others. A description of the project to preserve these records is available at
http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/records/ if you want more details. I hope that you will donate, join or renew your membership to the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See
http://www.wcha.org/about-wcha to learn more about the WCHA and
http://www.wcha.org/store/membership to join.
It is also possible that this canoe could have another number or be from a different manufacturer if this description doesn't match your canoe. Can you supply some pictures of the serial numbers from each end showing the surrounding areas? Some more showing the decks and interior features of the canoe would also be helpful. Frequently canoes with four digit serial numbers turn out to have hidden digits or are from other manufacturers. Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions. Thanks,
Benson