Silk Sails (16 page)

iv. More than 50 women between 1840 and 1983 who were appointed executors of a will or were granted Letters of Administration by the Supreme Court in order to settle the family estate sold their ship(s) within a year or two, some within a matter of days or weeks. For whatever reason these women were not interested in continuing the business – some because of age, some because their fortunes had already been attained, some because it was an opportune time to pass things over to other family members to continue the business, and some simply as a means of immediate survival. The reasons are just as likely to have been circumstantial as personal. I have chosen to deal only with a few from the earlier period because of possible family sensitivities.

Alice Elson was the widow of John Elson, who had been manager of Slade, Biddle & Co. of Carbonear. When John died in 1840 Alice was appointed administratrix to John's estate and she transferred by bill of sale to the trustees of the now insolvent company all John's rights in the two schooners
Tyro
and
Mary
. John Elson was a native of Exmouth, England, had been one of the principals in founding a literary circle at Carbonear and had also started a lending library in the town. Diana Butt's husband John, a planter at St. John's, died in 1847. His will appointed Diana executrix, and she sold the 42-ton schooner
Sultana
the same year. Mrs. Foley's (her first name is not available) husband Michael, a planter at St. John's, died in 1847, and his will appointed his wife executrix. She sold the 108-ton brigantine
Aspendus
within three months to the Lake brothers, “Booksellers in Falmouth in the County of Cornwall.”

Julia Chancey's husband Thomas, of Carbonear, died without a will in 1848, and Julia was appointed administratrix of his “Estate and Effects.” She sold his 16 shares in the 106-ton
schooner
Adelaide
immediately. The Chanceys were a prominent merchant family. In 1848 their eldest daughter Sarah married Donald Bethune, Esq., “Sub-Collector of Her Majesty's Customs” at Carbonear, and in 1852 their daughter Cornelia married Thomas H. Newell of Boston.

Elizabeth Vallance Wakeham's husband, Robert Roberts Wakeham, died in 1848 and Elizabeth was appointed administratrix of the estate. Her husband had been a merchant, barrister-at-law, and clerk of the Legislative Assembly. She sold the brigantine
John Rachel
in 1848 and the brigantine
Ann Amelia
in 1849.

Mrs. Carter of Greenspond, widow of John Carter, Sr., who died in 1853, as his administratrix, sold the 66-ton brig
Britannia
the same year. The Carter family had been on Greenspond Island since the seventeenth century.

Most of the other cases in this category are quite routine and straightforward, but the probate process provides some interesting insights into merchant families. Elizabeth Munn of Harbour Grace was the widow of Hon. Robert S. Munn, merchant and member of the House of Assembly. Robert died on December 17, 1894, and on January 2, 1895, Elizabeth issued a certificate to sell the 114-ton schooner
Rose of Torridge
, “empowering Robert C. Ehlers to sell the ship at Bristol, England, for a sum not less than 750 pounds sterling within three months from date of certificate.” The ship was sold to a British subject at Carnarvon, Cape Province, April 11, 1895. Robert Munn was a native of Scotland and had arrived in Newfoundland in 1851 with the firm of Punton & Munn. He married Elizabeth Munden, a native of Newfoundland. He died just a week after the crash of the Union Bank and his firm collapsed soon after his death. In 1906 Elizabeth became a mortgagee for a ship bought by Norman Munn of Harbour Grace.

When John Woodhouse Owen, merchant at Twillingate, died in 1902, his will, dated 1890, appointed his wife Louisa
executrix. She sold the 25-ton
Sea Bride
in April 1903 and sold the northside and southside business premises to Henry J. Earle, John's partner for many years. Louisa then moved to Wilton, Mowbray, England, although it is believed that she was a native of Twillingate and that her maiden name was Janes. It has also been suggested that Louisa may have been from Terra Nova Birkdale in the county of Lancashire, England.

Robert Scott, merchant at Fogo, died in January 1913, and his widow Elizabeth F. Scott sold the 71-ton steam/sail vessel
Annie
in June of that year. Robert Scott had been born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1835 and had run a fishery supply business and a passenger and freight service to and from Fogo Island.

The Hon. James Pitts, merchant at St. John's, died in 1914, and his will appointed his wife, Mary Pitts, and the Eastern Trust Co. Ltd. as executors. Mary sold her 31 shares in the 520-ton three-masted steam/sail ship
Ranger
in November 1915. The Pitts family had settled at Lance Cove, Bell Island, as early as the 1730s and later moved to St. John's. Another member of the family, James S. Pitts, carried on a large fishery supply business for many years.

Henrietta G. Harvey's husband John, of St. John's, died in January 1920, and Henrietta and Edward F. Harvey were appointed executors through John's will of 1918. They sold the 297-ton three-masted vessel
Sunset Glow
in June 1920, the
Gwennie Burdock
in June 1921, and the
Arkadian K.
in May 1922.

Robert G. Rendell, a St. John's merchant, died in 1929, and his will of 1926 had appointed Mary Herder, his sister, and the Royal Trust Co. as his executors. Over a period of 16 months, Mary Herder was involved in the sale of six ships, the discharge of four mortgages and the transfer of two other mortgages.
Maria (Buffett) Parsons was appointed one of three executors when her father, George Abraham Buffett, merchant of Grand Bank, died in 1929. Maria's mother was Julia Forsey. Maria's brothers were Aaron Buffett, also a merchant of Grand Bank, and Dr. Claude Buffett who lived and practiced in Hawaii. Maria had received a B.A. from Mount Allison University and had studied music there. She taught music in Grand Bank and later in St. John's. She was also choir leader at the Grand Bank United Church for many years. She died in February 1970.

v. And finally there were more than 40 women who inherited ships and elected to remain in the business. Some of these were discussed in the early period: Olive Hederson of Brigus, Elizabeth Taylor, Ann Toque, Mary Howell and Jane Gould of Carbonear, Margaret Blake and Elizabeth Vallance Wakeham of St. John's.

At a later time, when the famous fish-killer and inventor of the cod trap, W. H. Whiteley, died in 1903, his widow Louisa, as executor, did not sell her two ships quickly. She remained in the business for almost three years. When Alexander Lawrence, merchant at St. John's, died in 1906, his widow Jane bought the 43-ton
Glencoe
from the estate in 1908 and held on to it until 1917. She bought the
Emily
in 1908 and also the
Jim L.
in the same year and sold the latter ship in 1913 when her mortgage was discharged. She bought the 63-ton
Lewisport
in 1918 and sold it the same day. She was an active woman.

Mary Maria West of Bay L'Argent inherited her husband's 23-ton ship
Louie H.
when Thomas William West died in 1909; she did not sell the vessel until 1916. Elizabeth Martin of New Perlican remained in the business for almost three years after her husband William James Martin died in 1914. Her husband's partner was a trader; they sold the ship in 1917. When William Mayo of Marystown died without a will in 1918, Letters of Administration were granted to Martha E. Banfield (his sister?) of Garnish. She did not sell
the vessel until 1927. Mark Guy, blacksmith of Catalina, died in 1924 without a will, and Letters of Administration were granted to Elizabeth Jane (Guy) House. She did not sell the ship until 1936, so presumably, it was being used in the family business.

The case of Jane Osmond of Moreton's Harbour is intriguing. Her husband, Dawe P. Osmond, merchant, died in April 1920, and she and Charles White, the other executor, sold the ship
Morton
in June 1921. But in the same month that her husband died, she bought 21 shares in the
Laberge
from Edward Roberts, mariner of St. John's, and did not sell these until December 1924. She appears to have sold these shares only because Roberts sold his 43 shares. We saw a similar pattern earlier with Sarah Foote, married woman of Grand Bank, who as an executor for her father's estate sold the shares in the inherited ship after three years and then bought shares subsequently in two other ships. Mitchie Ann Crosbie, as one of the executors for her husband's estate when he died in 1932, held on to the ship
Wabby
until 1936.

Ellen Kenny, widow of Fermeuse, held her ship, the
M. A. Kenny
, for 12 years after her husband died in 1937; she and her co-executor, John Joseph Kenny, did not sell it until 1949. Louis Sheaves, merchant at Channel, bought the 122-ton
Lucille M. Colp
from A. H. Murray & Co. in 1943. Louis died without a will in 1944, and his widow, Mary Wilmot Sheaves, inherited the ship and held on to it until it went ashore on a ledge off Frenchman's Head at the entrance to Humber Arm in May 1949. From interviews at Channel in 1995, I learned that Mary Wilmot Sheaves was born a Bishop at Bonavista, came to Channel as a school-teacher, and married Louis when she was 29 years of age. She gained two children from Louis' previous marriage and had nine children with him. Louis had little formal schooling. Mary was the bookkeeper of the firm in a real partnership. A family member remarked: “She run the
business. Women looked after the books and the men worked.” A big part of Louis' business was transporting fish to the mainland and bringing coal from North Sydney. He owned several ships over the years. Mary died in 1973 at age 77.

Women were no more inclined to make wills about their own property than were men. Perhaps the same superstitious lore affected their attitudes towards making a will.

Only one instance was found in the records of a woman having made a will, and that was Sophie Knight of Grand Bank in 1926. Six women were found to have died without wills: Julia Tessier of St. John's in 1893; Margaret Stone of Rocky Brook, Trinity Bay, in 1918; Sarah Pittman of Merasheen in 1933; Emma Louise Foote of Grand Bank in 1935; and Eva King of Lamaline in 1936.

“Co-partners in Trade” was not a common term used routinely even for male partners in the ship registers. I did not encounter it more than a dozen times. So it seemed unusual to find it used, especially for women, in the earlier period.

There are three instances in the ship registers in which women were referred to with this designation. For two ships which they owned jointly in 1831 and 1833, the
Shamrock
and the
Calypso
, Catherine Morris and Patrick Ryan of Burin and St. John's were clearly designated co-partners in trade. Ann Toque and Simon Levi were stated to be co-partners in trade in 1831 when the ship
Elizabeth
was registered. When the
Elizabeth
was re-registered in 1839, Ann Toque and John Rorke were declared to be co-partners in trade.

When the ship
Sybil
was registered in 1852, Charlotte Colelough and 15 others were said to be co-partners in trade. The latter was a clear case of speculators investing in the future. John Haggaret was a master mariner and master of the
Sybil
, but the other partners in the venture were: James Beaton and Peter Ritchie, tailors; Hamilton Fleming, architect; James Wheatley and Edward Henson King Belchar, accountants; David Muir, silversmith; William Thuin, John Watt and Robert Murphy, carpenters; Patrick Wiley and George McLennan, coopers; Andrew Fairie, plumber; James Vey, watchmaker; John Kingwell, schoolmaster; and Charlotte Colelough, spinster. In the case of Julia Kelligrew, when the ship
Ann
was registered in 1853, though her husband William and his partner John Goodridge are clearly designated co-partners in trade, the fact that Julia held 22 shares in trust for her two sons implies that she was included as a co-partner.

The term “co-partners in trade” was quickly superceded in the records by use of the simpler terms “partners” or “owners.” The implication of the earlier term was that, when it was used for women, it implied a more substantive role than merely putting down their money.

All sole owners were indeed managing owners. We see this clearly in the case of Mary (Shepherd) Gosse of Spaniard's Bay as described by Eric Gosse in his book
The Settling of Spaniard's Bay
. Robert Gosse III built the ship
Victoria
in 1861 with the help of his six sons, and he died prematurely in 1863. His widow Mary “immediately took overall command, found the money to outfit for the fishery in 1864-65, and appointed her son Robert as captain and her eldest son John Charles as master of the cod-seines. With her crew of six sons Mary sailed aboard the
Victoria
during both voyages as cook and chief supervisor of these expeditions. In 1866 Mary stayed ashore, having sold her schooner to Robert, and the remaining members of the family dispersed.”

Two other similar matriarchs at Spaniard's Bay were Sarah Barrett and Catherine Gosse. The earliest plantation in Spaniard's Bay was granted to Sarah Barrett in 1755, and there is no mention in the records of either inheritance or purchase. The property was already a well-developed fishing establishment at that time and consisted of two houses, three gardens, a meadow and two flakes. The third woman of note in Spaniard's Bay was “the redoubtable Catherine” Gosse, widow of Robert Gosse, Sr. Robert died in 1794 and Catherine continued to operate the family fishing enterprise and died in 1818 at the age of 92. This is probably the same Catherine Gosse who is listed in the 1805
Conception Bay Plantation Book
as purchasing land at Bread and Cheese Cove from Thomas Mann for 30 pounds sterling (no date given) and leasing it to Gosse & Chancey for 31 years at 5 pounds sterling per annum.