Shipbuilding and Communication by Sea

Until the twentieth century most travel along the Easter Shore of Nova Scotia was by sea in sailing vessels or steamers. Naturally the early settlers of St. Mary's Township used some of the abundant timber to build fishing vessels or coasters.

In 1809 John Taylor, David Archibald 3^rd and John McKeen (who then lived about ten miles above the head of the tide on the St. Mary's River, where Sherbrooke did develop later) asked the Lieutenant-Governor for a grant to open a road down the river to the place where vessels could moor because their communication with Halifax was by sea.⁽⁶⁰⁾

Six years later the inhabitants and settlers on the rivers of Antigonish and St. Mary's asked Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Sherbrooke for "a good Road from Dorchester (now Antigonish) to the tide water at St. Mary's River" so that they could drive their "stalled cattle, in the winter season or early in spring.", and to send them either alive or slaughtered and in quarters or otherwise, and also pork and poultry to the great and mutual benefit of these settlements and the Halifax markets."⁽⁶¹⁾ The presence of a British Garrison stationed at Halifax and also squadrons of the North Atlantic Fleet of the British Navy provided a large market for cattle in the capital of Nova Scotia, and these armed forces had been largely increased since the outbreak of the war with the United States in 1812.

We do not know the name of the first ship built on the St. Mary's River. A shipyard for boats and ships was located near the mouth of the river at what has become Sonora. This yard was owned by Elisha Pride and his son Ira Pride. Elisha had come from Shelburne County, and in 1811 had received a tract of land which had been escheated from Alexander McNutt, where he had already been living, with his wife, five children, and an orphan nephew. He had continued to clear his land with the help of his family, and had constructed a schooner "and followed the Labrador Fishery" in 1813⁽⁶²⁾.

Pride's partner in the building of this schooner was Robert Dickson, who said that he had cleared and improved the small portion of land on his grant which was fit for cultivation, and that they had employed the schooner "in the Labrador Fisheries to good purpose."⁽⁶³⁾ Captain William Moorsom in his Letters From Nova Scotia in 1830 wrote that two small fishing establishments had been formed at Sherbrooke and that the vessels carried lumber or produce to Halifax in April, and there fitted out for the Labrador coast. Also Captain Moorsom remarked that the St. Mary's River was navigable for vessels of 600 tons and that for six miles from it's mouth the channel was never closed by ice in winter. However, small craft of under 100 tons were used by the settler and "during the year 1828 six vessels of that description were built between Sherbrooke and the sea. The price current in the market at that time was 4 pounds (of Nova Scotia) currency⁽⁶⁴⁾ per ton, and the expense of building these vessels, iron-fastened, would be covered at the rate of three pounds ten per ton."⁽⁶⁵⁾

A noted shipbuilding firm at Sherbrooke was McDonald Brothers' (Alexander N. and David A. McDonald, merchants) whose shipyards were located south of their mill site at "McDonald's Cove". The ships built for them were usually loaded with lumber, sailed to Great Britain, and sold there.⁽⁶⁶⁾ Charles S. McIntosh, shipwright, built for them the Rebecca Ann. About 1890 the McDonald's built the Sherbrooke which made voyages to Jamaica and New York⁽⁶⁷⁾. About 1866 Henry McDaniel, shipwright, built the barque Regina for Cumminger Brothers', whose shipyard was located south of the original mill site of 1817, in the centre of the village. At Sinclair's Point was Sinclair's Shipyards.⁽⁶⁸⁾

In 1855 two vessels of 180 tons, valued at 2350 pounds had been built at Sherbrooke, where its inhabitants already owned 10 vessels totalling 684 tons valued at 10,685⁽⁶⁹⁾. Ship-building records for Nova Scotia are incomplete, and most of those which have survived have been moved to the Public Archives of Canada at Ottawa. The following vessels built at Sherbrooke are listed in Thomas H. DeWolfe's Nova Scotia Registry of Shipping in 1866:

Thomas R. Dewolfe, Nova Scotia History of Shipping, Halifax, N.S. 1866