Silk Sails (11 page)

An interesting instance of joint ownership occurred at Trinity where Joseph Purchase and his wife Amelia (nee Newell) sold their plantation in 1848 to Patrick Fowlow. In 1837 Thomas Newell, Sr., had bequeathed the plantation to his daughter Amelia, and it consisted of “a certain Room or Plantation called Newell's Point at the entrance of Gat's Cove in the N. W. Arm of Trinity.” The bill of sale to Patrick Fowlow reads: “Know all men that I Joseph Purchase Husband of Amelia Purchase she consenting thereto, as witness her signature to these presents, for and in consideration of the sum of 23 pounds currency…sell to Patrick Fowlow planter and dealer of Trinity…” The plantation which was Amelia's was vested in the
name of her husband, but it is interesting to note the references to her “consenting” and to her “signature.” One wonders if she had insisted on this, for she no doubt possessed the moral authority to do so. She probably kept the accounts and ran the business end of the family venture, for she signed her name, but her husband simply made his mark on the bill of sale. Later, in 1885, after Patrick Fowlow's death, land was granted to Widow Mary Fowlow and her sons John, Thomas, Philip and Martin, all of whom are called planters. In the Newfoundland Crown Lands Grant, the widow's name preceded those of her sons in the five times these occur. Three acres, three roods and thirty perchas were added to their holdings by this grant.

Canadian ship registers from the late-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century clearly indicate that widows, single women and married women owned ships and shares in ships on a fairly regular basis. Their numbers were never great, but they were a presence, and their involvement in the business of shipowning is worthy of the closest study. Their actions anticipated legal changes and, indeed, inculcated a climate of change that would influence future legal and social decisions.

The more than 400 women whose names appear as shipowners in the Newfoundland ship registers and other records were scattered all over the island in about 130 communities along the coast. By way of a rough summary, there were 80-plus women in St. John's, 15-plus on the Southern Shore of the Avalon Peninsula, 5 in Placentia Bay East, about 70 in Placentia Bay West and the Burin Peninsula, about 45 in Conception Bay, about 25 in Trinity Bay and the same in Bonavista Bay, 30-plus in Notre Dame Bay and White Bay, about 25 on the West Coast, 40-plus on the South-West Coast, about 30 on the South Central Coast, and one in Labrador. The largest concentrations were in St. John's (about 80), Grand Bank (20), Carbonear and Rose Blanche (17 each), and Burin (12). Twillingate and Harbour Grace had 8 women shipowners; Harbour Breton, Wesleyville and Harbour Le Cou had 6; Brigus, Fortune, Ramea and Belleoram had 5; most of the other communities had 1 or 2 women, and a few had 3 or 4.

Without naming every individual woman in the records, perhaps the best way to deal with the wealth of information about them is to describe a few representative women by ownership patterns, i.e., whether they were sole owners, joint owners, co-partners in trade, managing owners, purchasers of shares, whether they were mortgagees or took mortgages themselves, whether they inherited ships and sold them quickly or remained active in the business, and so forth. The main focus will be on the earlier period and up to the early 1920s, although I searched the records up to 1990.

The two favoured ownership patterns emerging in the records were sole ownership by a woman and joint ownership with men or other women. The term “sole ownership” as used in the ship registers usually means that there was one or two or three or more
exclusive
owners, but it is here taken to mean
exclusive ownership by one woman
. Again, by way of rough summary, there were more than 220 instances of women being sole owners of ships, about 150 instances of joint ownership (including about 40 cases in which a woman owned jointly with her husband and other men and about 10 cases in which a woman owned jointly with another woman), 3 cases in which women were designated “co-partners in trade,” 2 cases in which men appointed women as managing owners, more than 30 cases in which women were designated managing owners, about 25 cases in which women appointed men as managing owners, more than 30 cases in which women were mortgagees, almost 50 cases in which women took mortgages on their ships, at least 13 cases in which women did not hold a mortgage but the man to whom they sold had to take one, 6 cases in which women sold their ships to other women, 2 cases in which couples sold directly to other couples, about 40 cases of husbands “selling” to wives and 5 cases of wives selling to husbands, about 80 cases in which a woman inherited a ship and sold it within one or two years, about 50 cases in which a woman inherited a ship and remained active in the business, almost 20 cases in which a woman apparently “staked” a planter to build her ship or hired a shipbuilder for that purpose, and at least 3 cases in which a woman's ship was engaged in the seal hunt. Of additional interest is the fact that there were only 2 instances in which a woman
shipowner died with a will and over 40 cases in which the woman died intestate; also there were at least 21 cases in which a woman named her ship after herself, 13 hints of scandal in connection with a woman's ship, and 5 cases of minors inheriting shares in ships. There were almost 50 cases of a woman being appointed sole executrix of a will, about 25 cases in which a woman was appointed as an executrix along with one or two male executors, and 2 cases in which two women were appointed as the only executors for an estate settlement.

Sole ownership by women was pioneered by widows who opted to remain active in a family fishing venture with which they were familiar and over which they exercised control. This pattern was followed early on by spinsters and then by married women, including a few even before the Married Women's Property Act was passed in Newfoundland in 1876. The first instance in the ship registers of a widow owning a ship was Ann McCarthy of Crocker's Cove, Conception Bay. She appears to have had the ship
Susan
built for her purposes by Richard Horwood of Moreton's Harbour in 1822. The ship was re-registered by Ann McCarthy in 1825. Her role in the registration may be ascertained from the wording of the original registration: “…having taken and subscribed the Oath required by this Act and having sworn that she is sole owner of the ship…
Susan
.” The Act referred to is “An Act for the further Increase and Encouragement of Shipping and Navigation…passed in the 26th year of the Reign of King George the Third.” The wording suggests that Ann McCarthy was physically present for the registration of her ship. The vessel was lost at Labrador, time unknown, and the ship register noted that the registry was closed on January 19, 1869. It is unlikely that the ship was involved in the Labrador fishery for all those years since registry of a ship was never closed until hard information was received, often many years after the loss or break-up.

The situation was similar with Catherine McGrath of Harbour Grace, widow, who as sole owner registered her ship
Success
in 1825. The ship had been built at Placentia as an open boat and “was raised on and decked in 1814.” It was re-registered in 1830, which means that extensive rebuilding work had been done. James Fox was master of Catherine's ship.

Mary Woodley, widow (of Samuel?) of St. John's, was sole owner of the ship
Hope
when it was registered there in 1831. The ship had been built at Blandford, Nova Scotia, in 1825, and it was “rebuilt and enlarged” in 1831, the year that Mary registered it. From 1831 to 1841, when it was re-registered, the ship had 14 different masters. Did they resent working for a woman or was Mary a hard taskmaster? Mary also registered the ship
Two Brothers
in St. John's in 1831; it had been “built at Bareneed as an open boat in 1825 and never before registered.” Samuel Woodley had been fishing out of St. John's since at least 1814, and Mary had opted to carry on the business alone after Samuel's death. According to manuscript records, Samuel probably died about 1830.

Nathaniel Woodley, Samuel's brother (?), died in 1833 and left his business to his wife Elizabeth, including “vessels, stages, wharves, etc.” There is a manuscript record at the Newfoundland Provincial Archives of Elizabeth's business transactions from 1833 to 1857. Since Samuel had called one of his ships
Elizabeth
and Nathaniel had called one of his ships
Mary
, it is likely that this is a case of two brothers having married two sisters, or of an otherwise very close personal relationship. Elizabeth loaned money, borrowed money – including 546 pounds sterling and 100 pounds from Newman & Co. – rented her properties, bought land, paid insurance on two houses, bought sails, ropes, anchors, and tarpaulins for her ships, paid for “curing fish,” and exported fish on three foreign-going vessels. Strangely, Elizabeth's name does not appear in the ship registers as a shipowner, but her husband Nathaniel had owned four ships:
Hero, Felicity, Brazilian Patriot
, and
Mary
, all registered between 1820 and 1831. Elizabeth must have held on to them in her deceased husband's name as a family company, though she sold the
Hero
in 1825 and the
Brazilian Patriot
in 1835.

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.