Shipbuilding & Shipping

Shipbuilding and Shipping. . With few existing roads along the Eastern Shore in the eighteenth century, the only reliable route to Halifax was by sea. During this period, Sheet Harbour’s isolated inhabitants relied on boats and ships for fishing, trade, and travel along the coast., Boats were constructed at Sheet Harbour as early as 1787, when John Stairs received two bounties from the Nova Scotia government for the construction of the sloops Joanna and Hope. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, small inshore fishing schooners and coastal vessels were built to carry Sheet Harbour fish and cordwood to Halifax. The masters of these vessels were referred to as “coasters”., By the 1830s, shipbuilding became a prosperous industry. Barques, brigs, brigantines, schooners, and scows were built at shipyards owned by William Hall in West River, Edward Rutledge at Watts Section, as well as the yards of James and John Fraser. The work was seasonal, as most of these shipbuilders were probably engaged in farming, lumbering, and business at other times of the year. Sections of land along the shore or rivers served as shipyards, where the hulls and frames were constructed before being towed to Halifax to be rigged. , The period of 1846-1867 has been designated as the Golden Age of Sail in the Maritime Provinces. As in other parts of the province, some of the ships built in Sheet Harbour during this period were larger, faster, and probably used to ship lumber and fish as far away as Europe and South America. Some of the ships built at Sheet Harbour were the brig Emma Adelaide, at 126 tons in 1847, and a barque, Stag, at 334 tons., The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, saw a decline in Nova Scotia shipbuilding, as steel steamers were slowly replacing wooden vessels on the sea, and roads connecting communities were being built on land. However, Sheet Harbour continued to build small fishing schooners for the prosperous fishing trade. , The successful lumber trade encouraged a few larger ships to be built at Sheet Harbour. In 1917 and 1918, the Lewis shipyard, located on the site of the old East River sulphite pulp mill, built two 4-masted schooners, Lewis Brothers and Cashier. Each weighing over 650 tons, these ships were involved in the hard pine trade, carrying timber and other cargoes to the Southern United States, South America, and South Africa. , Lumber and fish were not the only cargoes transported from Sheet Harbour. Communities along the Eastern Shore relied on regular steamship service to carry passengers, mail, and other goods, along the coast and to Halifax until the 1940s., In the late 1800s, travel from Sheet Harbour to Halifax, by road, took up to thirty-six hours, where a steamship could reach Halifax in about eight hours., Coastal steamers such as The City of Ghent, S.S. Margaret, Chebucto, Strathcona, and Dufferin became a regular part of life for Sheet Harbour residents, making stops between Halifax and Canso, Nova Scotia. Many on the Eastern Shore, who remember traveling by steamship, look back on the experience with fondness., Although the age of wooden ships has long passed, and complex highways carry many exportable goods to various markets, Sheet Harbour still serves as an active shipping port. Steel, fish, and wood chips are shipped to Dartmouth, the United States, and Japan respectively., (photo captions) , . Unknown schooner, c. 1888. [Maritime Museum of the Atlantic] , . Sheet Harbour boatbuilding. [Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management] , . Two-masted schooner with cargo of lumber. [Maritime Museum of the Atlantic] , . Three-masted schooner docked at East River Wharf, c. 1940. [Courtesy Richard Walsh Collection] , . Three-masted vessel at West River, Sheet Harbor [History Collection, Nova Scotia Musem] , . Schooner plan. [Howard I. Chapelle, The American Fishing Schooner, New York , . City of Ghent, coaster. [Maritime Museum of the Atlantic] . This historical marker is in Sheet Harbour in Halifax Region Nova Scotia