Volume 10 - Section V - ElectricCanadian.com

SHIPBUILDING IN CANADA 585
largely as the result of their inability to collect the amount
due them for the Lady Russell, a fine ship of about 1000 tons
burden, which they sold in England for 10,000. Two other
vessels, appropriately named the Alarm and the Recruit,
were built, but they failed to restore the solvency of the
firm. Contemporaneous with the Salter brothers as ship
builders at Moncton were M. L. Harris and Malcolm
Cochrane. Beginning about 1865, Archibald M c Kay also
built a number of spruce ships at Moncton, among which
were the Lalla Rookh and the Alcedo.
It was in the counties fronting on Northumberland
Strait and the Gulf of St Lawrence, however, that the timber
industry assumed the largest proportions, and it was along
this portion of the coast that shipbuilding became one of
the most important of industries. Dalhousie, Bathurst,
the Miramichi ports and Restigouche were the chief ship
building centres. Practically all the shipping from this
part of New Brunswick was engaged in the timber trade.
The trade in fish and furs held precedence over all others
until about 1815, when the trade in lumber and squared
timber took the lead. After that date saw-mills and ship
yards began to multiply. At Bathurst, prior to 1850, from
five to ten merchant ships of the largest class were frequently
on the stocks at one time, separated only by sufficient space
to allow the workmen to pass between them. At Newcastle
and Chatham there were a number of shipyards, and at the
latter place a steam saw-mill owned by the Cunards, who
also had a large shipbuilding establishment on the Kouchibouguac
in Kent County. As early as 1825 the Miramichi
was coming into prominence for its shipbuilding, and, when
the great fire passed over it in that year, two partially com
pleted ships were destroyed. The industry continued to
grow and in 1839 twenty-six vessels, having a tonnage of
nearly 10,000 tons, were built at the Miramichi ports.
The reciprocity agreement of 1855 between Canada
and the United States had an important influence on ship
building in the Maritime Provinces. Under it the products
of the forest were admitted free of duty into the United
States, and by the time the treaty was abrogated in 1866