intended for sale in the British ship market.675 
     
     Finally, there are comments on the impending 
     
     decline of the industry, as wooden ships were 
     
     being replaced by iron and steam vessels, and the 
     
     ship-building materials on the island were 
     
     perceived by some to be running out.676 Places 
     
    
   
   
    
     receiving mention in the extracts as centres of 
     
     677. 678. 
     
    
   
   
    
     shipbuilding are Bedeque Bay , Richmond Bay , 
     
    
   
   
    
     'Grand Rustico Harbor’679; St. Peters Bays”; 
     
    
   
   
    
     Murray Harbours“; Three Rivers / Georgetownm; 
     
    
   
   
    
     675 Anon. (1818): “More than forty sail of ships are employed in 
     
    
   
   
    
     the timber trade to Europe; some of them six hundred tons 
     
     burthen, and all built upon the island"; MacGregor (1828) noted 
     
     that the island had derived “considerable benefit“ by building 
     
     vessels for the seal and cod fisheries of Newfoundland, but he 
     
     went on to say: “The “building of vessels for the British Market" is 
     
     “the branch of trade in which the largest capital has been invested, 
     
     and that which has given employment to the greatest number of 
     
     men, while it has at the same time been also of considerable 
     
     benefit to the colony, until the late depression in the value of 
     
     shipping Upwards of a hundred brigs and ships registering from 
     
     140 to 550 tons each, have been built in different parts of the 
     
     island within the last few years". However, four years later, during 
     
     one of the downswings, he wrote (MacGregor 1832): "ship- 
     
     building, unless it be the building of vessels for the carrying of 
     
     trade of the colony, and a few schooners for the Newfoundland 
     
     fisheries is at an end"; Bouchette (1832): “Ship-building is still a 
     
     branch of trade of some moment; numbers of vessels, from 150 
     
     to 600 tons, are readily disposed of in the British market; and to 
     
     this may be added a large number constantly constructed for the 
     
     Newfoundland fisheries"; Lewellin (1832): “The colony produces 
     
     timber for vessel building; here are an abundance of shipwrights."; 
     
     Hill (1839): “ship building has proved a profitable source of 
     
     production, and furnished a valuable export to Great Britain. The 
     
     exports to Newfoundland, have chiefly consisted of many 
     
     vessels for the grand fisheries of that island"; Murray (1839): “The 
     
     building of ships is also a considerable branch [of trade], and their 
     
     vessels, though some have been carelessly constructed, bear on 
     
     the whole a good reputation." 
     
    

    
     676 Land Commission (1860): evidence of Edward Thornton, 
     
     M:P.P.: “shipbuilding has gone down and land [at Murray Harbour] 
     
     has depreciated in value"; William McGowan (a delegate from Lots 
     
     44 and 45), refers in the past tense to the years "when shipbuilding 
     
     was carried on somewhat extensively"; Orlebar (1862): “the wood 
     
     for ship building is fast disappearing, and of late years the number 
     
     of ships built has greatly diminished"; Ward (1887): “ship-building 
     
     [at Summerside] is largely an industry of the past". However, the 
     
     mini-boom in the 1870s is reflected in the comments of two visiting 
     
     writers: Rowan (1876): “ships in different stages of progress may 
     
     be seen in winter apparently in the fields or the middle of villages"; 
     
     Anon. (1877): “ship-building is in a very thriving condition". 
     
    
   
   
    
     6" MacGregor 1828; Gesner 1846 (“at the shore near St. 
     
     Eleanors”, i.e. at what is now Summerside); Anon. 1877 (at 
     
     Summerside). Also, both Mann (1840) and Seymour (1840) noted 
     
     in their journals (not extracted) the ship Dahlia being built in the 
     
    
   
   
    
     Pope shipyard at Bedeque. 
     
    
   
   
    
     67" MacGregor 1828; Gesner (1846): at Port Hill he observed 
     
     “nine ships upon the stocks". 
     
     679 
     
    
   
   
    
     Bagster 1861 (p. 63, not extracted). 
     
    
   
   
    
     “0 Seymour 1840: "seven vessels building in the woods"; 
     
    
   
   
    
     Gesner 1846 (at the mouth of the Morell River). 
     
    
   
   
    
     102 
     
    
   
   
    
     Mount Stewart, Souris and Fortunes“. This is not 
     
     a complete list, as is evident from the 
     
     comprehensive regional breakdown of the industry 
     
     in Part Two of De Jong and Moore (1994).684 
     
    
   
   
    
     The trees used in shipbuilding — The trees that are 
     
     mentioned in the island records extracted in this 
     
     report as either being available for, or used in ship- 
     
     building are: pine for masts (mostly in eighteenth 
     
     century records)685; black spruce for masts and 
     
    
   
   
    
     sparssas, and for the ’topsides and decks’w; 
     
    
   
   
    
     yellow birch for the parts of the ship below the 
     
    
   
   
    
     water-linem; and tamarack for the knees689, as 
     
    
   
   
    
     681 
     
    
   
   
    
     MacGregor 1828; Hill 1839; Land Commission 1860 
     
     (evidence of Hon. Edward Thornton, M.P.P.). The first and last 
     
     mention the Cambridge shipyard, the latter retrospectively. 
     
    
   
   
    
     “2 MacGregor1828; Bouchette 1832; Hill 1839; Gesner 1846, 
     
    
   
   
    
     683 The latter three are mentioned by Anon. (1877), 
     
     68‘ As De Jong & Moore (1994) (p. 13) point out, very little 
     
     documentation on community-based activities and shipyard 
     
     operations appears to survive. However, Greenhill 8. Giffard‘s 
     
     (1967) Westcountrymen in Prince Edward‘s Isle utilizes many 
     
     types of sources to give a highly interesting picture of the ship- 
     
     building enterprise initiated by Devon entrepreneurs in Lots 13 and 
     
     14 in 1818 and continued by their successors on the island into the 
     
     1870s See also Chapter 4 of Morrison's (1983) Along the North 
     
     Share for a useful re-construction of ship-building in another 
     
     western township, Lot 11. 
     
    

    
     685 The pines of the island as a potential source of masts are 
     
     referred to by Holland (1765) (March), Anon. (1768), [Clark] 
     
     (1779) and Stewart (1806). It also appears that the mention of 
     
     ‘ship timber' at Three Rivers and Cape Bear by Anon. (1762) is a 
     
     reference to pine suitable for masts. 
     
    
   
   
    
     “6 Stewart 1806; Hill 1839; Bain 1890. Chappell (1775-1818) 
     
     used the “best black spruce" for the gaffs, boom and the fourteen 
     
     foot long mast of “the great barge" that he built in Charlottetown in 
     
     1779. I also note that the Surveyor General of Nova Scotia 
     
     Charles Morris in 1773-74 in connection with a report on the 
     
     forests of Cape Breton Island noted that “Black Spruce affords 
     
     excellent masts for vessels about one hundred tons and under; it 
     
     seldom grows above two feet in diameter clear of sap[wood] but 
     
     would serve for top masts for capital ships and smaller yards; it is 
     
    
   
   
    
     esteemed much stronger than pine, and very little heavier" (cited 
     
     by Johnson (1986), (pp. 41 ~42). 
     
    
   
   
    
     “7 Hill (1839) — by ‘topsides', I presume that he means the 
     
     exterior planking above the water line. 
     
    
   
   
    
     6“ Stewart 1806; Anon. 1808; Hill 1839; Bain 1890. None of 
     
     these recorders specify the particular parts of ships for which 
     
     yellow birch was used. However, Perley (1847) in his paper on the 
     
     trees of New Brunswick noted that black and yellow birch (he 
     
     differentiated them as separate species) were used for “that part of 
     
     the frame of vessels that always remains under water", i.e. the 
     
     ”keel and lower timbers of vessels", adding that black birch was 
     
     "almost imperishable under water”. A similar comment on its use 
     
     was made by the Surveyor General of Nova Scotia Charles Morris 
     
     in 1773-74 in connection with a report on the forests of Cape 
     
     Breton Island: ”Black birch is used here in ship-building and has 
     
     been found to be more durable than Oak, especially for such parts 
     
     of vessels as lie under water and for plank" (cited by Johnson 
     
     1986, p. 41).