Silk Sails (19 page)

At least four women were appointed as managing owner of a ship by their husbands: Mary Yarn of Mose Ambrose in 1956, Laura Garland of Gaultois in 1957, Bessie Goodyear of Carmanville in 1958 and Annie Northover Berkshire of Spencer's Cove, Placentia Bay, in 1959. As demonstrated earlier in “Women as Managing Owners,” many women were in effect managing owners from the very early years, and from the 1960s onwards, it became quite common for women to appoint themselves as managing owners of ships.

Margaret Catherine Fitzgerald of St. John's in 1896 was called a matron, so she must have been a woman of status. Agnes H. Fitzgerald in 1919 was designated a stenographer. Una May Youden in 1956 was designated an accountant, as was also Mary Rosella Bradley the same year. At least five women were called “housewife”: Clara Teresa Hardy, Elsie Read, Marion Emerson White, Lillian Martha Hynes, and Mabel Roberts. In two of these cases – Clara Hardy and Marion White – this designation was later “corrected” to “married woman.” Bessie Wilhelmina Savory of Lewisporte was designated in 1975 as “Homemaker.”

Marie S. Penny was called business manager in 1954; Rose Ting of St. Lawrence in 1986 was called Company Director of Eldorado Seafoods Ltd.; Vivian Wright of St. John's in 1990 was designated as both managing owner and businessperson. And Hazel Marie Stuckless of Gander in 1973 was also given the double designation of managing owner and housewife. Ruth Story of Story Bros. Ltd., Portugal Cove, was in 1975 a “clerk” who was appointed manager of the firm.

Emily Caines of Bartlett's Harbour inherited the ship
Freddie C
when her husband Sidney Joseph Caines died in 1970, and she sold it in 1972; she is clearly designated in the records as a widow. Amie Caines of the same place in 1968 was designated a fisherman and managing owner of the ship
Wedgeport Lad
; the ship was sold in 1972 also, the same year Emily sold her ship. It is impossible to determine if this was the same person.

It was common practice to name ships after women, usually a daughter or wife of the builder or the owner, so the small amount of vanity involved in a woman naming a ship after herself may be easily forgiven. It may in fact be viewed as understandable assertiveness and a public statement that women were fully involved in the business of owning and operating ships. Though there was an old belief that re-naming a ship was unlucky, it seems that women ignored the superstition.

There were at least 21 instances in Newfoundland in which women named ships after themselves in the period 1837 to 1953. Elizabeth Henderson, widow of Harbour Grace, owned the ship
Elizabeth
jointly with her son-in-law, Charles Simms of St. John's, in 1837. The ship had been built in Devon, England, in that same year and sold to Henderson and Simms at St. John's. The name was very likely assigned at the time of registration. Catherine Brown, widow of Burin, was joint owner with Richard Brown, builder and master
of the ship
Catherine
when it was registered in 1844. The next case of this kind was not until 1862, when Catherine Cummins, widow of St. John's and joint owner with Peter Cummins, master mariner, registered the ship
Kate Cummins
at St. John's. In 1870, Mary and Ann Taylor, spinsters of Carbonear, registered the ship
Mary and Ann
.

When the Commercial Bank of Newfoundland crashed in 1894, bankrupting the Duder firm, Margaret Eliza Duder, wife of Edwin John Duder, bought the brigantine
Maggie
, obviously named after her, under the Liquidation Act of 1895. Mary Walsh's ship, the
Mary Sheehan
, may have been named in 1905 for her birth name. Theresa Stone of Catalina had William Johnson build a 20-ton ship for her in 1906 and she named it the
Theresa S.
When Mark Guy, blacksmith of Catalina, died in 1924, Letters of Administration were granted to Elizabeth Jane House (nee Guy), married woman, and very likely Mark's sister. The ship was named the
Lizzie Guy
, and Elizabeth House did not sell the ship until 12 years later.

We have already encountered Margaret Stone of Rocky Brook, wife of Emmanuel Stone. When their jointly owned ship was rebuilt and re-registered in 1925, it was named the
Maggie Stone
. Ellie Ann Hartigan, widow of Rencontre, in 1922 named her ship
Annie F. Hartigan
, and this name may have been a reference to her middle name and possibly her birth name. When William Mayo of Marystown died in 1918, Letters of Administration were granted to Martha E. Banfield, married woman of Garnish, and probably William's sister, but the Letters were not granted until 1927 when she sold the ship. Obviously Martha, and probably her husband, used the ship for the intervening nine years, and the ship was named
Martha E.
The name of Mary Frances Bishop's ship in 1927 was
Mary & Bride Bishop
so perhaps the ship at Salmonier was named after her and a sister.

Rosella Emberley's ship, the
Rose and Blanche
, in 1928 may have been carrying her name and the name of another family member. In 1933, Wilson Riggs, clerk, and Alice Maria Nash, married woman of McCallum, purchased and renamed their two-year old ship, the
Alice M. Nash
. Margaret Brenton, married woman of Burin, in 1934 named her ship the
Margaret Brenton
. Eva King, married woman of Lamaline, in the same year named her ship
Eva King
.

Mary Vallis of Coombe's, Fortune Bay, bought the
R. J. Devereux
in 1941 and registered the ship under the name
Mary King
, undoubtedly her birth name. Alice Hatcher of Rose Blanche in 1946 named her ship
A. M. Hatcher
, possibly after herself. Also in 1946, Harriett Chislett of Rose Blanche named her ship
H. B. Chislett
, which may have been a reference to her own name. The ship in which Annie Marie Cheeseman of Rushoon held shares in 1950 was named
Annie Cheeseman
. When Nicholas Joseph Walsh, mariner of Fermeuse, died in 1953, Letters were granted to Margaret Walsh, widow. She then sold the ship
Maggie Walsh
, which bore her name. And finally, the ship that Elizabeth Joanne Hatcher of Rose Blanche inherited when her husband Roy died in 1984 was named
Elizabeth Joanne
. She was the managing owner of the ship and she may well have named it.

We have already encountered the feisty, proactive Newfoundland women who were unafraid to use the courts to redress wrongs done to them in that early society. There was a special fierceness in them when it came to protecting the family's assets and assuring its survival.

Mrs. Catherine Clements, widow of Ferryland in 1785, was an example of the feisty woman. When she was prevented by James Rouse, her neighbour, from using the landwash to wash her fish and the beach to dry it, she and three of her male servants pulled down the flake which Rouse had built on disputed land between the two. Catherine acknowledged that the land was not hers, that it had been part of the original Potsbury Plantation, but that she had used it undisturbed for many years and felt she had the right to continue to do so. She was still operating two boats and a skiff in the fishery. (A skiff was larger than a fishing boat, usually
35 to 40 ft. long, and was operated with sails, but required four men to row it, each with a paddle). Mr. Justice Carter informed the governor in court at Ferryland that the Clements family had purchased at least part of the original plantation. The court record breaks off in the middle of a sentence, saying that “it is their opinion the said Beach is neither of said Clements right but as the said Clements had dried her fish there before they had given it her she being last in possession…” The court obviously found in favour of Catherine.

In Trinity in 1753 there were 72 heads of families, 62 mistresses of families, 21 women servants and an unstated number of male servants. Servants were also called “dieters,” i.e., those who stayed over from the Old Country for the winter and served “for their keep,” i.e., their diet. During the working season, May to October, these servants were paid 20 pounds sterling each. Elizabeth Tite was one of these “mistresses of families,” though there is no mention of children; she may in fact have been a spinster, though it is more likely that she was a widow. She had three English male servants and six Irish servants; she kept seven of these all winter. She had one boat, one train vat and one stage. She had a neighbor, Mrs. Mary Waterman, who was not faring as well. In that same year, Mary was ordered to pay her four creditors a total of 33 pounds sterling annually “until the debt was discharged.” We are not told of the extent of her indebtedness. While her payments were kept up “she was not to be subject to distraint and could go on with the fishery.” The full extent of her fishing operation is not known, but an inventory of her effects shows that she was in possession of “casting nets, caplin seine, cod seine, lance seine,” so she probably had more than one boat and a similar number of servants to Elizabeth Tite, since the court must have determined that she was able to repay her debts and still make a living.

These kinds of cases can be multiplied over and over again from the records, and there were other kinds of “irregularities” in the early records. An interesting case is described in the Ferryland papers in a dispute between the Carter and Nunan families in the early to mid-1800s. Richard Nason left property to a spinster,
Anstice Gorman, and her illegitimate son, Thomas Nason, in his will of 1818. In 1828 Anstice was a servant and heiress of Dan Nason, Jr. In her will (date not given) she is described as “late of the Town of Youghal in the County of Cork, Spinster,” and she left her property to her nephew John Nunan. Details are scanty in these papers, but it would appear that Anstice was the mistress of Richard Nason. The papers also indicate that “negro slaves” were kept in Ferryland during this period.

The ship that Elizabeth Henderson and her son-in-law bought in 1837 at St. John's may have been a case of seizure, since it was sold to them through “the Magistrate of the Admiralty Court of this Island bearing date of 19 May 1837.” That kind of high-sounding language is not typical of the language in the ship registers. There are other cases of seizure as well. Ada Annie Petite, widow of Mose Ambrose, bought the
Charlie and Eric
, which had originally been named the
Mystery
. This vessel had been “seized from foreigners (US subjects) and ordered to be sold at public auction by the Exchequer Court of Canada, Nova Scotia Admiralty District.” It was purchased from the Sheriff of the County of Halifax. Another case of what appears to be seizure is recorded in the case of the 16-ton
Grace and Evelyn
, which was owned by Jane Irene Paul, married woman of Fortune. Transaction 1 reads as follows: “John Cahill, Sheriff of Newfoundland, by order of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland in Admiralty dated 11 May 1938, sold 1 June 1938 to Philip Joseph Lewis of St. John's, barristerat-law.” Could this have been a case of smuggling from nearby St. Pierre?

The vessel
Night Train
had been off the registry for some reason prior to 1975, was restored to the registry in that year, sold to Harold Derber of Manchester, England, and then in Transaction 10 (the tenth ownership) it is stated: “Catherine Logan, under Power of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, dated February 15, 1977 (as person from whom title is derived)…” Six months later the vessel was sold to Argus Shipping Co. Ltd. of the Cayman Islands. It appears that there were some irregularities involved here.
Mary Campbell, widow of St. John's, bought the
Swift Current
in 1894 from a Nova Scotia owner. Five months later the vessel was lost at Broad Cove Chapel, Nova Scotia; it was very likely involved in trading between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. The registrar expressed his dissatisfaction with repeated attempts to get the Certificate of Registry from the owner, and finally states: “Application was made to Campbell & Smith 5 or 6 times for certificate of registry and could not get any satisfaction. Wrote to George Smith and after a time he came and produced the Halifax, Nova Scotia, certificate of Registry, May 6, 1896.” Mary Campbell may not have been a good business manager in this case.

Edwin Duder of St. John's and Twillingate was at one time the owner of almost 200 vessels, sending more than 100 of these each year to the Labrador fishery and shipping fish to Europe and the West Indies in large carrier vessels. When Duder died in 1881 he passed his firm on to his son, Edwin John Duder, who built on the father's success. When the Commercial Bank crashed on December 10, 1894, Duder was unable to recover from the $600,000 indebtedness. He retired from the business and devoted his remaining years to managing the Carpasian Dairy Farm in St. John's; he died in 1918. (The fishery firm was revived in 1895 by a son-in-law, George J. Carter, and continued operating out of St. John's and Herring Neck). What is interesting is that on January 24, 1896, Margaret Eliza Duder, married woman of St. John's, bought the three-masted barquentine
Maggie
(undoubtedly named after her) “from the Commercial Bank of Newfoundland, under liquidation by act passed 7 January 1895, approved trustees: Jas. R. Fox, Maurice Teucton, Robt. L. Mare.” This must have been one of the Duder carrier vessels. In 1904 Margaret Eliza sold 4 shares in the vessel to Edward Dingle, master mariner, and bought these back from his widow, Annie, when Edward died in 1905. Margaret Eliza continued in the ship business. In 1900 she bought the
Nimbus
and sold it two weeks later; obviously it was a money-maker. And in 1904 she bought the
May Flower
and held on to it for more than two years. The
Maggie
was lost at sea on March 11, 1912, and that seems to have marked the end of Margaret Eliza's involvement with ships. H. Y. Mott in his book
Newfoundland Men
, published in 1894, describes Margaret Eliza with a flourish as “a lady whose charity and benevolence, as also her increasing work in the cause of philanthropy have given her a name, the remembrance of which will be handed down to successive generations for emulation.” And P. K. Devine in
Ye Olde St. John's
states that Edwin J. Duder's wife was the daughter of Mr. Stead, merchant, and Miss Simms, and that she “was regarded as the most beautiful woman in the city, and is still living” (i.e., in 1936).