Silk Sails

by Calvin Evans

  Dinah Hollett, widow of Great Burin, was a shipowner sometime after 1819 according to family testimony, although I could find no confirmation of this in the ship registers. She was born in 1747, probably in England. John Hollett, her husband, was born in 1736 and was from Henstridge, England. Dinah and John were married in 1770, and their first child, Thomas, was born in 1771. They had five sons and two daughters. According to a letter from William Tulk, teacher at “the Bay of Burin school” in 1815 (a relative of John’s), three of John and Dinah’s grandchildren were attending Tulk’s school. In fact, one of their sons had built the school. Tulk characterized Newfoundland as “this rocky wild and unchristian country,” and described John as “the old gentleman” who is now sending Tulk’s mother 30 shillings “in remembrance of Henstridge.” One of the Hollett grandsons had been drowned while “coming home to Henstridge” the previous winter. John Hollett died in 1819, and a family member affirms about Dinah: “it would be around that time she may have taken over the responsibility of the shipping business, although her eldest son was 45 years of age when his father died.” Actually Thomas was 48, but he may have been dealing with a strong-willed mother, accustomed to handling the business. Dinah’s signature on her will of 1820 consists of an “X” but that does not mean that she did not have sufficient schooling to run a business. Many people who lacked formal education were reluctant to write their signature laboriously in the presence of an educated person making out the will and chose to defer to the “X” instead. Dinah Hollett died in 1826.

  Mary Parsons, widow of Clown’s Cove, registered the ship Margaret & Sally in 1834. It is obvious that she was present for the registration, for the record reads: “…having made and subscribed the declaration…and having declared that she is the sole owner of …” The ship had been built at West River, Prince Edward Island, and Samuel Parsons was the master. Mary had bought the ship on August 6, 1833, but it was not registered until 1834. See “Joint Owners,” below, for the same Mary Parsons and for a different Mary Parsons.

  Moving now to a later date, Charlotte Lee, widow of St. Jacques, Fortune Bay, whose husband had been Robert (?), the builder of her ship, owned the Mary Jane and registered the vessel in 1846, with Philip Kiddle as master. Catherine Walsh, widow of St. John’s, registered the brigantine William Stairs in 1857. This ship had been built in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, the previous year. In its five years the vessel had only three masters, and it was lost at the seal fishery in 1862. Amelia Power, widow of Trinity, registered the 91-ton ship Willie in 1882. Charles Bugden was the builder and master. It was lost near the Horse Islands on November 12, 1889, probably on the way back from the Labrador fishery. Sarah Cluett, widow of Belleoram, whose husband had been William L. H. Cluett (?), the builder, registered the 95-ton vessel Prima Donna in 1884. This ship was broken up at Belleoram in 1915. Sarah must have been a woman of some influence since another vessel owned by Arthur and Levi Cluett was given her name in the early 1900s.

  There is a most curious practice that prevailed at Burin in the period from the 1870s to the 1890s. Mrs. Eloise Morris, widow, ran a fishery and supply business during these years. She was likely related, possibly by marriage, to Patrick and Catherine Morris who owned ships and properties both at Burin and St. John’s in the 1830s. She may have been the widow of Patrick, son of the original Patrick. She was the mother of three daughters: Lizzie, who married Capt. Hoberg, a Norwegian who had a small business in Burin and who was drowned on a voyage to Oporto; Kate, who died in Boston; and Ella, who was for many years the librarian at the House of Assembly in St. John’s. Something of Eloise Morris’ character may be gleaned from The History of Burin(1977): “Mrs. Morris, a very competent, well-educated lady of strikingpersonality and with a command of language peculiar to the old school, was rather imperial but not haughty in her manner. Being involved in a lawsuit which required her presence in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland in St. John’s, she engaged as her lawyer the Late Lord Morris (then quite a young man). In her particular case he was obliged to show her all the old world courtesy such as engaging a cab, calling to take her to the court, offering her his arm, escorting her into the court after alighting first and assisting her down from the cab because she disliked being stared at by the ‘rabble’ around the courthouse door.”

  When Eloise Morris’ customers in the Burin area went into debt, Mrs. Morris arranged a legal surrender of their property to her (ships, boats, shops, property, and so forth). Some say she “bullied” the men into signing over their property, but that may be too unkind a judgment. She became the legal owner of these properties, but there is no record in the ship registers of these vessels ever having been registered in her name. I have examined the records in the Burin Heritage Museum, and Fred Winsor has described Mrs. Morris’ practices in his Ph.D. thesis, The Newfoundland Bank Fishery: Government Policy and the Struggle to Improve Bank Fishing Crews’ Working, Health and Safety Conditions, 1876-1920. Her business involved fish, oil, fur, and lobsters, including the operation of a lobster factory. In the signed agreements, the fisherman was instructed to do everything for the benefit of “his said Master’s interests” (“Master” meaning Mrs. Morris), and “according to the customs of the Fishery,” i.e., the local customs of Burin. All agreements were signed and duly witnessed by her two office assistants, Michael Flynn and Hugh Reddy. Some of the agreements state that if they cannot pay their debt “we shall bring the said boat to her wharf if she requires it” as settlement of the debt. Customers were given from one to ten years to pay off debts; and in one case a man signed an agreement to pay an outstanding debt owed by his deceased father. At least five fishing boats are mentioned in the agreements: Seaman’s Pride, Mary Joe, Philomena, and Mystical Rose; the fifth boat is not named. I was unable to find any of these in the ship registers, probably meaning that they were undecked boats and were not required to be registered. Fred Winsor claims that Mrs. Morris gained possession of 16 vessels in total. I expect that the original owners of boats and property continued to be supplied and financed by Mrs. Morris until they were able to pay off their debts. The fishermen who worked on Mrs. Morris’ banking schooners (e.g. the Laura May) signed a different type of agreement, in which they were paid by getting “half their share of fish” but from this share they had to pay “their part of Bait, Ice, Freight, and Fishmaking according to the Custom of Burin.” In fact, the schooner Laura May was signed over to Eloise Morris in 1890 for debts owed by the three male owners. Mrs. Morris was undoubtedly schooled by the merchant customs of her time to divert the profits to the business and not to the workers; she was a hard-nosed businessperson.

  As a footnote to the preceding examples, it should be noted that in Vol. 22, Folio 80, at the Crown Lands Office, there is a transaction concerning the Morris family of Burin: “Eliza Morris of Burin widow in trust for the purposes declared in the last will of Mary Morris of Burin Spinster deceased and administratrix of the estate of the late Patrick Morris of Burin merchant deceased, her heirs and assigns…(land) known as Morris’ Point, between Bull Cove and Ship Cove…7 acres and 8 perchas…$350…June 7, 1877.” These were the incomplete notes I made in 2001, and I am not sure how they should be interpreted. Mary Morris was undoubtedly Patrick’s sister. Were Eliza and Eloise the same person?

  Mary Ann March of Old Perlican inherited two ships when her husband, Elias March, merchant, died without a will on January 18, 1908. The ships were the Emily Bell and the New Daisy. Letters of Administration were granted to Mary Ann on May 1, 1908, and she sold both ships to William C. Job, merchant at St. John’s, on November 18, 1908, having held them for little more than six months. Elias and his brother Eleazor jointly owned the business, but Eleazor, as captain of the ship Dove, was lost with all hands in 1871. The house flag was composed of two vertical red bars separated by a white bar. The business was bought and operated by one of March’s clerks, George Howell. A nephew, Alfred March, son of Ebenezar, founded the March Shipping Line of Montreal. After World War II, this
house flag was flown regularly by the Montreal firm.

  The first spinster sole owner in the ship registers was Mary Foley Morris of St. John’s. She may have been a sister of Patrick Morris whose widow Catherine was a shipowner in Burin and St. John’s in the 1830s. Mary Foley Morris started her shipowning with a bang. She registered three ships in 1842: John & Mary, Nancy, and Relief. These had all been previously owned by Thomas Foley of Harbour Grace, undoubtedly a relative. She took mortgages on all three from merchants James Niner Wood and James Douglas. Margaret Blake, spinster of St. John’s, was sole owner of the brigantine Triton when it was registered in 1845. She sold the ship in 1847. She appears to have inherited the ship United Brothers from her brother (?), Thomas Blake, and she had it rebuilt and re-registered in 1847. Patrick Sexton was the master.

  Elizabeth Freake, spinster of Joe Batt’s Arm, was the sister of Charles Freake of Birchy Bay, the builder and master of the 88-ton Homeward when it was registered in 1889. She owned all 64 shares so it is likely that she “staked” her brother to build the ship. Elizabeth Pennock, spinster of St. John’s, in 1902 purchased the ship Tasman which had been built in Holland in 1893; it must have been a small luxury ship for the specifications mention crew space, captain’s cabin, mate’s berth, bosun’s locker, storeroom, pantry and sail locker, and a house on deck. However, by the end of 1903 she had authorized Daniel Connally, master mariner, to sell the ship on her behalf. Gertrude Newman, spinster of Boyd’s Cove, owned the 33-ton schooner Margaret Newman and registered it in 1910, the year that it was built by Joseph Newman, her brother (?). Joseph Butt, a fisherman at Joe Batt’s Arm, held a mortgage of $800 for her at 5% per annum and it was payable by October 1, 1916.

  Other spinster owners included: Evangeline Booth, who owned the Salvation Army ship Bonavista in 1899, originally named the Salvationist; Nina Osmond of Exploits, Burnt Islands, who bought the schooner Phoebe M. in 1936 and the Lom in 1938 and who carried on a business with her brother Otto for several years; Mary A. T. Roberts of Twillingate, who bought the schooner Hattie A. Heckman from Lucy Roberts, widow, in 1927; Mary Frances Bishop of Salmonier, who bought the Mary and Bride Bishop in 1927 (this vessel was condemned at Renews in 1952 as being unfit for further service); and Rosella A. Emberley of Creston, who owned the small schooner Rose and Blanche, which was built by her brother (?) William Emberley in 1928.

  Sole ownership by married women started in 1885, nine years after the Married Women’s Property Act was passed in Newfoundland. The first married woman to own all 64 shares in a ship was Martha Mitchell of Grand Bank, wife of Charles Mitchell. Martha was a Hickman from Grand Bank. She registered the Hattie E. Collins that year. This ship had been built in 1866 at Booth Bay, Maine, U.S. The ship was active until 1888, and there is no information on her beyond that date. Mary Ann Quirk, married woman of Fortune Harbour, in 1893 owned the schooner Notre Dame, which had been built at Fortune Harbour by John Manuel of Kite Cove, almost surely for her specific use. Elizabeth Dean, married woman of St. John’s, registered the Switcher in 1894; she sold it to Edward Maher in 1899. She also owned the Isabella for a time and sold it in 1901 to a master mariner in Nova Scotia. In 1895 Ellen Deen, married woman of Bonne Bay, registered the ship Mary Ellen, which had been built by Thomas Deen that same year. The small 12-ton ship was lost the next year “north-west of Fish Island Straits at Bellisle.”

  Margaret Stone of Rocky Brook, Smith Sound, Trinity Bay, registered the 37-ton Cumberland in 1901; the ship had been built by her husband, Emmanuel Stone, in 1898. On November 19, 1906, Margaret sold the vessel to Walter Baine Grieve, a St. John’s merchant. Margaret is listed again later as a joint owner. Mrs. Mary Walsh of Harbour Breton bought the Mary Sheehan from French interests at St. Pierre-Miquelon in 1905, and it was lost in Fortune Bay just 20 days after she had purchased the ship. Bridget Mahoney, married woman of Bay Roberts, registered the vessel Birch Hill in 1911; it was “totally lost” or “cast away” on October 14, 1916, on the way back from Labrador. For more information on this case see the later section on “Ships, Irregularities and Even Hints of Scandal.” Grace Petipas of Summerside, Bay of Islands, in 1911 bought the Henry M. Stanley, which had been built in Essex, Massachusetts, in 1899 and rebuilt in Bay of Islands in 1911. It was a Labrador-going ship, and she sold it on July 4, 1913, to merchants in Halifax.

  As the twentieth century approached, shipowning by women seemed to have become a more natural activity. Bride (or Bridget) Goff, married woman of St. Joseph’s, bought two small ships in 1898, the Hero and the Florence Silver. Rachel Johnson, married woman of Little Catalina, became owner of the Rego, which her husband William built in 1899. She sold it the next year to a trio of merchants in Catalina but bought it back from them in 1905. Mary Keech, married woman of Epworth, bought the 55-ton Jessie M in 1904, held onto it for six years and sold it to a merchant in 1910. The Keech family later moved to western Canada.

  In 1902 Anastassia McDonald of Salmonier owned two ships: the Bonny Lass and the Senator. John McDonald had bought the first vessel in 1898 and transferred title by bill of sale to Anastassia in 1902. He did the same thing with the second vessel, which he bought in November 1902 and sold to Anastassia one month later. This may well have been a husband-to-wife transfer, but there seems to be some modeling going on here, which is evident in 1909 when Anastassia sold the Bonny Lass to Ellen McDonald, married woman of Salmonier. Ellen then bought the Anita C from Michael F. McDonald in 1922. Anastassia McDonald died in September 1917 at Newbridge, Salmonier, leaving a husband, three daughters and two sons.

  Theresa Stone, married woman of Catalina, bought the 20-ton Theresa S. from its builder William Johnson in 1906, naming the ship after herself and holding on to it for eight years. John House of Gooseberry Island built the Lizzie H. in 1902, sold it to St. John’s merchant William C. Job in 1903, bought it back from Job in 1905, sold it to Emma House (very probably his wife) by bill of sale in 1906, and she sold it to George Knowling, St. John’s merchant, in 1910.

  Jane Lawrence, widow of Alexander Lawrence of St. John’s, was the owner of four ships. Alexander died in 1906 and James Lawrence was appointed executor of the will. In 1908 he sold the 43-ton Glencoe to Jane, which she used for nine years, the JimL., on which she took a $2,000 mortgage in 1911 and which she sold in 1913, and the Emily. In 1918 James Lawrence sold the 63-ton Lewisport to Jane, and she sold it the same day to Joshua Winsor of Wesleyville. A quick sale indeed!

  Ellen M. Shea, married woman of St. John’s, bought the 142-ton Artist from Patrick J. Shea two days after he bought it in August 1916. The vessel was in a collision with the S.S.Espanolets of Malaga in the Spanish Mediterranean on February 20, 1917 or 1927; the date is indistinct in the records.

  Catherine Greene, widow of Cape Broyle, bought the 44-ton ship Effie M. in 1921 under Mortgage B (the second mortgage), which had been taken out by the previous owner, Jesse Winsor of Wesleyville. Catherine Fewer was born at Chapel’s Cove, Harbour Main, in 1855. In 1880 she became the second wife of Constable Thomas Greene (his first wife had died in childbirth). Catherine and Thomas had thirteen children; her eldest son Walter was killed in 1917 during World War I. Thomas died in 1914 while stationed on Bell Island, and Catherine returned to Cape Broyle. She may have bought the ship for her son Greg, who ran a general store in Cape Broyle. According to family testimony, although she had little education, she carried herself like a queen and acted the part of a refined lady. She went blind in her late years and died in October 1946 at age 90.

  Eliza Reid was born at North Harbour in 1885 and in 1900 married Josiah Pafford, a planter/trader in that place. They had twelve children. Eliza had a Grade 8 education and was a co-partner in the business with her husband and was the bookkeeper. Josiah died in 1924 with typhoid fever, as did five of their children, and in 1928 Eliza married George H. Eddy, who operated a general store, packed herring for export, and was in the salt-cod business. They continued to use the small schooner L. G. P., which Josiah had left to Eliza and which wa
s named for their two daughters, Lillian and Gertrude Pafford. Not until 1931, seven years after Josiah’s death, did Eliza seek Letters of Administration to regularize ownership of the schooner. She obviously did this in order to sell the ship. Letters were granted to her on May 19, 1931, and she sold the ship nine days later to William Farrell, master mariner of St. John’s.

  The length of time that women held on to ships is of special interest. Here is a sampling from the records. Ellen Hann of Petit Forte bought the Christie M. from the Marystown Trading Co. Ltd. in 1924 and held on to the ship for almost 11 years. Ellen Whelan was born in 1879 at St. Brendan’s, Bonavista Bay, graduated with teacher training from St. Bride’s College, Littledale, and went to Petit Forte as a teacher, later marrying Michael Hann. They had nine children. Ellen owned the ship Christie M. from 1924 to 1930. She was involved in the family business as secretary and bookkeeper. She died in 1955. Irene Jane Blackmore, married woman of Port Union, bought the W. J. Phillips in July 1926 and sold it in July 1937, exactly 11 years. Elsie T. Roberts, married woman of Wesleyville, bought the Lillian and Jackie in March 1928 and sold it in June 1939, that is, after 11 years and 3 months. Elizabeth Jane House, married woman of Catalina, inherited the Lizzie Guy from Mark Guy (probably her brother) and held on to it for almost 12 years.

  Eliza Matilda Pardy, whose husband was Capt. Thomas W. Pardy of Harbour Breton, bought the 23-ton Maraville in January 1930 and sold it in October 1943, having used it for 13 years and 9 months. Eliza Sibley was born in 1881 at Harbour Breton. She and Capt. Tom were married in 1904 and they had two children. Eliza died in 1967 at age 86. Annie (Newman) Hannam, whose husband was Johnnie of Rose Blanche, bought the J. A. Hannam in October 1931 and sold it in September 1946, that is, 15 years less 1 month.