Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 9

Halifax Waterfront Buildings: An Historical Report

by Susan Buggey

Introduction

The 19th-century waterfront buildings here examined occupy two wharfs extending east from Water Street into Halifax Harbour (Fig. 1). They lie between Duke and Buckingham streets immediately north of the County Court House and south of the old Ordnance Yard. At the head of the south wharf stand the Pickford & Black Building and Collins' Bank and Warehouse; east of them are situated the Carpenters' Shop and the Red Store respectively. On the north wharf, running east from Water Street, are the Simon's Building, the Privateer's Warehouse and, at the water's edge, the Wooden Storehouse (Fig. 2). Three blocks uphill from the site towers the shopping and office complex of Scotia Square.

1 The Halifax peninsula showing the location of the waterfront buidlings. (click on image for a PDF version)

2 The waterfront buildings in relation to the downtown area of Halifax. (click on image for a PDF version)

3 Section from "A PLAN of the BATTERIES erected in the Front of the Town of HALIFAX 1755." (Public Archives of Canada.) (click on image for a PDF version)

4 Section from a map by J. F. W. Desbarres entitled "The Harbour of Halifax, 1779." (William L. Clements Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan.) (click on image for a PDF version)

5 Section from "A PLAN of the PENINSULA upon which the TOWN of HALIFAX is situated shewing the HARBOUR, the NAVAL-YARD, and the several WORKS constructed for their Defence, Surveyed in the Year 1784 by Captain Charles Blaskowitz Under the direction of Lt. Col. Morse, Chief Engineer in America." (Public Archives of Canada.) (click on image for a PDF version)

6 "Plan of the Wharfs and Buildings in the front and near the centre of the Town of Halifax, late the property of the Honble Alexr Brymer and by him sold to Messrs. Cochrans of Halifax Merchants, now in the possession of R. Lester and R. Morrogh Esq.s" (1803) (By permission of the Controller of H. M. Stationery Office, London, PRO; WO55/857, fol. 150.) (click on image for a PDF version)

7 "Plan of the proposed addition to Messrs. Prescot [sic] Lawson and Clarke's Wharves, Halifax, 1809." (Pickford & Black Co. Ltd., Halifax) (click on image for a PDF version)

8 Tracing of a section from Royal Engineer's Department plan showing buildings adjoining the Ordnance Yard, Halifax, 1812. (By permission of the Controller of H. M. Stationery Office, London, PRO; WO55/2403, fol. 30.) (click on image for a PDF version)

9 Tracing of a section from Royal Engineer's Department plan showing buildings adjoining the Ordnance Yard, Halifax, 1814. (By permission of the Controller of H. M. Stationery Office, London, PRO; WO44/83, fol. 306.) (click on image for a PDF version)

10 Section from "Plan of Town of Halifax including North and South Suburbs 1830." (Public Archives of Nova Scotia.) (click on image for a PDF version)

11 Section from "GENERAL PLAN OF THE TOWN AND SUBURBS OF HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA showing the relative situations of the different Ordnance properties therin, No. 8, 1831." (By permission of the Controller of H. M. Stationery Office, London, PRO; WO55/2594.) (click on image for a PDF version)

12 Tracing of a plan accompanying deed of transfer. R. W. Fraser to William Tarr and William Chisholm, with information added from deed, 1859. (PANS microfilm copies of the Halifax County deed books, bk. 127, fols. 248-50.) (click on image for a PDF version)

13 Section from "Plan of the City of Halifax," about 1863. (City of Halifax B-H-490.) (click on image for a PDF version)

14 Section from "PLAN of Proposed Drainage System for Halifax, 1866." (City of Halifax C-7-442.) (click on image for a PDF version)

15 Section of Plate B, City Atlas of Halifax, Nova Scotia. From actual Surveys and Records by H. W. Hopkins (Halifax: 1878.) (National Map Collection, Public Archives of Canada.) (click on image for a PDF version)

16 Section of Block 112. Map of Halifax City (by) Charles E. Goad. (1889) (City of Halifax.) (click on image for a PDF version)

17 Section of Block 112, "Insurance Plan of the City of Halifax, Nova Scotia (by) Charles E. Goad." (London: 1895) (By permission of the Trustees of the British Museum, London, MAPS 147 b.13.) (click on image for a PDF version)

18 Section from Block 112, "Insurance Plan of the City of Halifax, Nova Scotia (by) Charles E. Goad." (London: 1914) (By permission of the Trustees of the British Museum, London, MAPS 147 b.14.) (click on image for a PDF version)

19 Tracing of a plan accompanying deed of transfer, R. L. H. Collins to Melvin S. Clarke, 1943. (Halifax County deed books, bk. 1027, fol. 537.) (click on image for a PDF version)

20 Plan of the Restoration Site compiled from deeds of transfer and legal agreements, 1753-1822. (Restoration Services, Dept. of Indian and Northern Affairs, Ottawa.) (click on image for a PDF version)

21 "Plan of Water Lots 1809-1909." (City of Halifax, S-8-2175.) (click on image for a PDF version)

Controversy surrounding the future use of the central portion of the waterfront, including the site of these buildings, prevailed in the city through the 1960s. Plans for a sewerage outlet and a southward extension of a harbourside freeway through the district were designed to meet urgent urban problems. Citizens who valued the historical and architectural character of the downtown area, however, opposed the sacrifice of the old warehouses. By 1969, both the civic and federal governments were committed to retaining and restoring the buildings which had been declared of national historic importance. The seven structures discussed in this paper are presently being restored to 19th-century exteriors in an historic landscape for late 20th-century use. This study was prepared in partial fulfillment of a legal agreement between the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs and the City of Halifax regarding this restoration.

From the founding of Halifax in 1749 until at least World War I, the portion of the Halifax waterfront designated for restoration was associated with men and events prominent in the commercial and civic life of the city. Aldermen and mayors, legislators and councillors, consuls and a member of Parliament all had business offices on the wharfs. Merchants and shipping men with international connections and reputations located there. The mid-19th-century owner of the south wharf was such a man. Reputedly by influence of the lieutenant-governor of the day and in the interest of the province, Enos Collins was appointed a member of the conservative but influential council board and married to the daughter of the future chief justice and niece of the bishop of Nova Scotia during the 1820s. With one of the several Nova Scotian fortunes acquired from patriotic privateering during the Napoleonic Wars, he invested in commercial enterprises and transacted in property for more than half a century until, when he died in 1872, he was believed to be the wealthiest man in British North America.¹

Activities on the wharfs have likewise been connected with many aspects of the city's development. The auctioning on Collins' Wharf of the stores and provisions of the American frigate Chesapeake denoted the town's rise to prominence during the late Napoleonic Wars.² The sailing of the first Nova Scotian ship to India from Clark's wharf in 1825 signalized expansion of the province's shipping to the seven seas, the basis of its mid-19th-century prosperity.³ The Nova Scotian built Dayspring, moored at Collins' wharf in 1863 before departing for missionary service in the New Hebrides, symbolized the province's strong religious heritage.⁴ Legendary attributions of the wharfs include both privateering and rum-running.

Fancifully considered to have been constructed of stone brought from the French fortress at Louisbourg, the seven historic waterfront buildings discussed in this study remain a tribute to the foresight, wealth, and influence of their 19th-century creators. Built between 1815 and 1875, they too have been closely affiliated with the evolution of the city. On the north wharf, the two stone edifices were erected for a father and a son, one with profits made during the Napoleonic War years, the other during the halcyon mid-1850s. One of these structures appeared when stone buildings, despite the local prevalence of ironstone, were still a rarity in the town. The other, with its coursed granite façade, signified the greater elegance to which inhabitants of the mid-century city aspired. The two massive ironstone structures at the head of the south wharf were built for Collins. Their expensive slate roofs were both a fire preventive in the largely wooden town and a symbol of their owner's prosperity. One housed the Halifax Banking Company, an eight-member firm composed of the economic, social and political elite of the community. Founded in 1825, it was the first formally organized banking institution in the province. A number of firmly established and far-trading mercantile houses tenanted the other structure until, in the 1870s, Pickford & Black made it headquarters for its international steamship line. Then carts and wagons lined Water Street daily carrying goods to and from the pioneering steamers to the West Indies (Fig. 44). The buildings nearer the harbour were wooden. Here were situated such marine-oriented services as coopering and sail-making, the more transient businesses of auctioneers and small-scale commission merchants, and public or private storage facilities. From shipbuilding to lobster packing, from the lumber trade to the voluminous dry goods and grocery businesses which flourished or failed according to economic fluctuations, the buildings have known the many long- and sometimes short-term interests of the Halifax commercial community.

By the late 19th century, more extensive local operations centring upon regional distribution of products gathered in worldwide shipping were replacing the multi-interest entrepreneur whose highway was the sea. The accompanying separation of wholesale and retail houses coincided with the first shift away from the harbour toward a more city-centred orientation. The coursed, smooth fa cade of the north edifice and the Classical Revival alteration of the south building, both fronting Water Street, were signs of this trend. The subdivision of warehouses to accommodate the offices of specialized businesses or agencies marked the functional decline of the south wharf in the 20th century. The amalgamation of the Halifax Banking Company with a national chartered bank, relocated in new uptown offices, reflected the expansion of large corporate interests into the region. The tendency in the modern urban community to displace the supplying of goods with the provision of services contributed to the subsequent by-passing and deterioration of the buildings and site in the mid-20th century.