Silk Sails (4 page)

Research at Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1993 and 1994 yielded so much information on women shipowners that I determined it required a book of its own. Thus this effort.

In the very early stages of this research, a staff member at the Maritime History Archives in St. John's remarked to one of the Maritime historians that I was doing research on women ship-owners,
and he replied, “Oh, and has he found all two or three of them?” That response seemed reasonable at the time. It was common knowledge that Marie Smart Penny of Ramea had owned ships in the 1950s; and perhaps it was known that Ada Annie Petite of Mose Ambrose had owned ships in the 1930s and the 1940s and that Ada Annie's granddaughter, Debbie Petite, was a current shipowner at English Harbour West, but that would have been the extent of common knowledge up to that time. Women's involvement with ships was considered to be inconsequential. Some consciousness-raising was necessary.

I later had an opportunity to speak of my research to a group of Maritime historians and other interested parties at both Memorial University and McGill University, and the consensus was that sufficient material existed for a worthwhile research project.

Part of my sabbatical leave research consisted of visits to several Newfoundland communities where there had been a concentration of women shipowners. I thought it would be possible to gather some anecdotal information from the children or grandchildren of some of these women. I despaired of finding any hard information through diaries or journals or written family records.

Accordingly, in the spring of 1994 I visited Channel-Port aux Basques, Rose Blanche, Harbour Le Cou, Diamond Cove, Isle aux Morts, Harbour Breton, Mose Ambrose, English Harbour West, Belleoram, Burin, Grand Bank, Fortune, Glovertown, Carbonear, Spaniard's Bay, Western Bay and Harbour Grace. I started my visits in Rose Blanche, dropping in at the post office and showing the clerk a list of some of the women's names. I was literally pointed to a house where one of these women was still living! Unfortunately she was suffering from memory loss, but the visit with her daughter and son-in-law was worthwhile. At Rose Blanche, Harbour Le Cou and Harbour Breton, I found six of these women shipowners still living and two of the husbands whose wives had been shipowners.

Ownership by these six women primarily covered the period 1943 to 1962, but the period of ownership by Maud Billard of Harbour
Le Cou covered most of the years between 1947 and 1983. Maud owned two ships, the latter one a longliner. The five other women were Myrtle Hatcher, Mary Elizabeth Hannam and Clara Theresa Hardy of Rose Blanche, Mary Yarn of Mose Ambrose, and Lillian Martha Hynes of Harbour Breton. These women owned one ship each. Violet Blanche Butt, wife of Simeon, of Harbour Le Cou had owned a ship through the 1930s and 1940s. I visited Simeon in 1994. The other husband was Henry Hatcher.

Most of these women were quite elderly when I visited them in 1994. Some were suffering from memory loss and unable to give detailed information. But three visits yielded good solid data nevertheless.

Myrtle and Henry Hatcher of Rose Blanche were 85 and 93 when I visited them on May 26, 1994. They were mentally alert, charming and very hospitable. Myrtle Riggs had been born in Anderson's Cove, Fortune Bay. She began knitting for NONIA (the Newfoundland Outport Nursing & Industrial Association) when she was 14 years old, that is, in 1923. NONIA had been formed by Lady Constance Harris, whose husband was the governor, and its aim was to place nurse/midwives in Newfoundland outports in order to improve health care. The program was later expanded by Lady Elsie Allardyce to include knitting and weaving, the profits from which supported these community nurses. Dr. Wilfred Grenfell sent a trained weaver to Poole's Cove, and Myrtle Riggs went there for special instruction. For 15 years she knit, did weaving and hooked mats for NONIA and was designated one of six persons to do fancy knitting and crocheting. When she had difficulty with the intricate and demanding requirements of the instructor, she would dream during the following night about how to do it and that always resolved the difficulty! In 1942, at age 33, she came to Rose Blanche as housekeeper for Henry Hatcher, a successful fisherman. Henry's wife Elizabeth had died and left four children. Myrtle looked after the children, “did a little flake work at the beginning” (i.e., curing fish), and cooked and washed for the sharemen. She said, “They were good times. No one was rich; everybody was friendly and helped one another.” Myrtle eventually married Henry
and they had three children. Myrtle and Henry bought the 23-ton
Minnie & Joan
in 1946 from Robert Allan Newman, merchant at Petites. Myrtle and Henry were joint owners; each owned 32 shares, and with a successful fishery they paid for the vessel in 10 months and operated it for 10 years. When I asked how Myrtle became a joint owner of their ship, Henry explained that it was “for the protection of my wife.” Myrtle was still living in 2005.

Mary Boone was born in Bareneed on November 5, 1912. Before moving to Mose Ambrose in 1949, she taught school for more than 20 years at Daniel's Harbour, Bellburns, Brig Bay, Savage Cove, Herring Neck, Shoal Cove West, and then moved to St. John's to teach at Springdale Street School and the Anglican orphanage. Chesley Yarn was a merchant in Mose Ambrose. His wife Stella was from Harbour Grace. She had a tubercular knee at age 17 and wore an artificial leg. By the time Mary Boone moved to Mose Ambrose, Chesley had long been a widower. They married in 1954. Chesley was a merchant with a business in Mose Ambrose, and with Mary's cooperation they started a new business in nearby English Harbour West for which Mary became responsible. She drove her car every day to the new location. Chesley had gone into “the ship business” about 1952 and operated the
Hilda M. Tibbo
as a passenger boat for several years until it burned. For six years Mary owned the 15-ton
Wagaymack
in her fishing business. When Chesley bought the vessel in 1956 the ship registry noted: “Mary Yarn of Mose Ambrose, NF., the person to whom the management of the vessel is entrusted by or on behalf of the owner. Advice under the hand of Chesley Yarn received 17 September 1956.” In other words, Mary was appointed as managing owner of the vessel. In Mary's own words: “He made me part owner to provide for me as a partner.” She operated the business in English Harbour West for 12 years and then assisted with Chesley's business at Mose Ambrose. When I mentioned to Mary that my reason for visiting her was that she had been a shipowner, she said she had not owned a ship. Then I reminded her of the
Wagaymack
and she said, “Oh, that was a boat. I thought you meant a big ship.” She was not about to take undue credit. The fact remains that it was a decked vessel and therefore required to be registered at St. John's. In praise of her husband, who had only a Grade 9 education, Mary said: “I had
the book learning, but Chesley was able to go around me in everything else. He was keen. An adding machine was no good to him; it just slowed him down.” Mary was an intelligent, well-read, well-spoken woman, a gracious host for my visit with her in 1994. The bookshelves in her living room held an array of good books, many of them recent publications, as well as several current magazines.

Violet Blanche Hannam was born on January 25, 1890, and married James Horwood, a merchant. When her husband died, Violet was left with five children and everything was tied up in the Horwood estate, from which she received nothing. In desperate straits, she came with her children to live with Simeon Butt of Harbour Le Cou as a housekeeper. In those days Simeon was fishing in “skiffs, two-masters with no boom, a little bigger than a snapper.” They married on December 8, 1931, though Violet was 14 years his senior. Violet did all the work in the home and she spread the fish and ensured that it was dried (cured) properly. She had a better education than Simeon so she looked after all the money and “all the trade.” But they consulted on all decisions. “One didn't do anything without clearing it with the other, without asking.” On January 14, 1935, Simeon bought the 15-ton
Agnes R
from the merchant Robert Newman. This was an old vessel. It was built by Frank Strickland of North Arm, La Poile, in 1916 and rebuilt in 1934. As testimony to the successful fishery of that time, in less than three months Simeon had the vessel paid for, and on April 1, 1935, he had it registered in the name of Violet Blanche Butt, his wife. At the same time he had his house put in his wife's name. When I asked him why he did this, he replied: “I did it in recognition of her contribution, and I never wanted her to know poverty again.” She died in 1977; Simeon was still living in 1994.

On this same visit I met and briefly interviewed Debbie Petite, Manager of J. Petite & Sons Ltd. at English Harbour West. Debbie is the daughter of Gordon Petite and the granddaughter of Ada Annie Petite, who operated the family business in Mose Ambrose for several years after her husband Harry was lost at sea. I have corresponded with Debbie Petite since that visit. As manager of the business, she is now a shipowner also.

These brief stories give some indication that women were involved with ships and the fishing business in a substantial way. But they represent only the tip of the iceberg. Women were involved in the ship business in even more substantial ways, as we shall see later.

In the almost 20 places I visited in 1994, I was in search of information on 114 women who were involved in the ship business from 1823 to 1983: 7 women in Channel-Port aux Basques, 17 in Rose Blanche, 6 in Harbour Le Cou, 6 in Harbour Breton, 4 in Mose Ambrose, 1 in English Harbour West, 6 in Belleoram, 2 in Glovertown, 12 in Burin, 21 in Grand Bank, 5 in Fortune, 17 in Carbonear, 2 in Spaniard's Bay, and 8 in Harbour Grace. These were the areas with the largest concentrations of women ship-owners and it was convenient for the travel time available. I feel fortunate to have been able to visit many of the last people to be involved in the merchant/fishermen salt-cod business.

Women in about 130 places in Newfoundland were designated shipowners in the ship registers. I sent letters and questionnaires to people in several of these communities in an effort to gather information about these women and combed through the records in local libraries for elusive biographical data. It was impossible to gather all the material one would desire.

So few hard data are available on women for the period covered in this study, roughly 1675 to 1975, that we can only guess at the details in many instances. In this 300-year period I have been able to identify approximately 1200 to 1500 women who were involved substantially in the ship business in the four Atlantic provinces and Quebec. In Newfoundland I have gone back to the earliest census (1675), and I have consulted court records and a variety of other sources in order to get a clearer idea of the durable woman who emerges from that misty past.

To give the reader a better idea of the breadth of women's involvement in the ship business, below is a list of the various categories I have been able to identify from the records of all five provinces, of England, and of the United States:

Women as sole owners of ships

Women as joint owners of ships

Women designated as co-partners in trade

Women designated as managing owners of ships

Women appointing men (husbands) as managing owner

Men appointing women as managing owner

Women who bought shares in ships

Women who inherited shares in ships

Minors who were designated to inherit shares in ships (often with mothers)

Women as mortgagees for ships Women who took mortgages

Women owners who did not have a mortgage but men to whom they sold the ship had to take a mortgage

Women who inherited ships and sold them within one year or so

Women who inherited ships and apparently remained active in the business

Widows who remained in the business after the husband's death

Widows who bought ships

Women appointed as sole executrix of a will

Women appointed as executresses (i.e. women only)

Women appointed as administratrixes Women appointed as one executrix among two or more persons

Women designated as executors

Women buying insurance on ships

A woman empowering the captain to sell her ship

Women dying with a will

Women dying intestate

Women naming ships after themselves

Women's occupations as designated in the ship registers

Women's ships involved in the sealing business

Women involved in the whaling business

Married Women owners before 1876 (i.e. before Women's Property Acts)

Women selling ships directly to women

Wives selling to husbands and vice versa

Women owning in partnership with women

Couples selling directly to couples

Women owning with husbands

Women owning with husbands and others

Women owning with men (brothers, fathers, general – not husbands)

Women apparently “staking” planters, traders and mariners to build ships

Women as navigators

Women as captains and mates

Women as shipbuilders

Hints of scandal involving women's ships

Women property owners, by purchase and inheritance, including married women

Some will ask the question: Why did women own ships? But the counter-question, based on the evidence, is equally relevant: Why not? There was a natural transition from owning property to owning a family fishing business to owning small boats for an inshore fishery to owning ships for fishing, trading and sea-going ventures and to buying shares in ships for profit-making. Perhaps it all began with “the first woman” inheriting a ship through her husband who drowned at sea, and realizing that the family business must continue for the survival of her own children, and knowing that she has the schooling to keep the books and
market the fish and the knowledge and experience to cure it for the greatest profit. She keeps her ship and operates her business successfully and proves to other women that it can be done.