The Canonicus class of American Civil War (1861 - 1865) monitors consisted of nine ships: Canonicus,  Mahopac, Manhattan,  Saugus, Tecumseh, Catawba, Manyunk, Oneota and Tippecanoe. They were considered an improvement over the Passaic class monitors that preceded them. The Tecumseh was sunk at Mobile Bay in 1864 when she struck a mine. 93 men perished. The remaining class members either survived the war or were completed too late for action. The name ship, Canonicus, was scrapped in 1908

Robert Gianamore, the builder, writes:
"I was looking for data on the Canonicus class ironclads so I could do a painting of it. I ended up making a model of it using hand carved poplar. I used what photos I could find and a little help from the national archives. The model is 25 inches long so the scale would be around 1/112. As I said it is made out of solid poplar. The stack and vent pipes are copper and brass tubing. The guns were hand made from wood and the prop and rudder are hand carved from poplar. The deck fittings, anchors and chains and life boats were purchased from model expo. The oars were hand carved."