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

Halifax Waterfront Buildings: An Historical Report

by Susan Buggey

Carpenters' Shop

Historical Information

The buildings on the south front of the Pickford & Black Wharf appear always to have been of a secondary, though not insubstantial, nature. Lying outside the "brick district,"¹ they were consistently constructed of wood during the 19th century.

When Quebec merchant Robert Lester attempted to sell his property east of Water Street to the British Ordnance department in 1803, there appears to have been an enclosed dock rather than a building at the southeastern end of the wharf (Fig. 6). By 1810, approximately 100 ft. of this dock had apparently been filled (Fig. 7). Either upon it or opposite it was probably erected the following year Edward Foster's new blacksmith shop where he and his sons offered services as "SHIP-SMITH, Mill Smith, House-Smith, Anchor-Smith, Axe, Edge Tool, and Screw Maker."² The south front of the wharf seems again to have been partially cut back toward its length of 1803, for its eastern end measured only 200 ft. from Water Street in 1830 (Fig. 10). The building then on the site, occupied as a sail loft and cooperage, was demolished that year³ when Collins had the south side of his wharf cleared to make way for the range of stores he erected at its head.

The structure which stood on the site by 1831 reached from the water's edge on the east to adjoin the Pickford & Black stone warehouse on the west (Fig. 11). This building overlooking the harbour was one of the King's Warehouses which served local merchants during the years when Halifax was a free-warehousing port. From the early 1830s Drillio and Longard used its upper floor for their sail-making, while from time to time the lower floor was occupied by one of the several auctioneers situated on the wharf. In 1836 the assessable value of the building was £800.⁴

By the early 1860s, when commission merchants Joseph and Robert Seeton bought the east and southwest sections of the wharf from Enos Collins, the building on the site housed George Drillio's sail loft and probably contained William Ackhurst's auction rooms on the lower floor.⁵ The wooden store of the 1860s does not, however, appear to have been the same structure that stood on the spot 30 years earlier. It was slightly longer than the previous building, and a partial wing on the southeast extended over filled land which reached several feet beyond the end of the building. Unlike its predecessor, it did not reach to the water's edge. Nevertheless, like the building shown in 1831, the wooden structure of the 1860s was narrower than the stone warehouse to the west (Fig. 13). The west end of the front structure measured approximately 38-1/2 ft. and apparently adjoined the Pickford & Black warehouse rather than, like its successors, using the wall of the stone edifice as a common wall.⁶ The building appears to have remained as late as 1876 when Robert Pickford and William A. Black purchased the property.⁷

Within two years, a much longer structure extended from Pickford & Black's stone warehouse to the water's edge, where the east end of the building was in line with that of the Red Store opposite (Fig. 15). Two distinct buildings were apparently contained within this elongated frame. The west one adjoining the Pickford & Black stone warehouse was three storeys high and had a composition gable roof. Windows along its north wall overlooked the wharf (Figs. 16, 23). By the mid-1890s the building had been remodelled, and numerous double-hung sash windows, spasmodically interrupted by larger windows and loading doors, replaced the earlier, sparser lighting. The exterior of the structure was clapboarded (Figs. 25, 30, 34). The larger east building, although approximately the same height as its companion, contained initially only two storeys beneath its composition gable roof. Three windows were shown on the upper floor, and a single loading door in the centre of the east end afforded access to the water (Figs. 16, 23). When remodelled during the early 1890s, the main room was divided into three floors, and the small eastern section, which had originally been a coal shed, was split into four levels (Fig. 17). The 108-ft. length was topped by a shed-style composition roof, and the words SAIL LOFT painted in large letters across the harbour end.⁸ A double-hung sash window was the only aperture in the east end (Fig. 31). Along the north side a plain trimmed, double-hung sash and a taller, narrower, shuttered window opened onto the top floor. On the ground and second levels there were no apertures in the eastern end of the north wall (Fig. 32).

About 1870 Thomas Forhan succeeded to Drillio's sail-making quarters on the southeast side of the Pickford & Black Wharf, and by the late 1880s tenanted the "commodious premises" on the top floors of both structures. The west section constituted his "spacious sail loft. 30 x 60 feet in size" where he employed 12 hands in "the leading firm in making the sails for yachts in Canada." The eastern one served for storage of the ships' wares in which he also dealt — canvas, cork-wood, ships' blocks and running gear.⁹ In the lower floors Pickford & Black warehoused their ship-chandlery goods. By the mid-1890s, when Pickford & Black had established themselves as a shipping agency, the premises were occupied as a customs warehouse to store goods destined for transhipment in bond or for delivery to city merchants upon payment of the duty due upon them. When a devastating fire reduced the whole structure to "huge piles of smouldering debris" in 1904, the warehoused goods were valued at $30,000.¹⁰

Architectural Information

The building presently on the front of the wharf dates from 1905¹¹ when it replaced the mutilated timber frame and clapboarded west end which survived the fire (Fig. 34). The new two storey structure was constructed principally of wood. The western portion of the south wall was, however, composed of concrete and the west wall formed by the 3-ft.-thick extremity of the Pickford & Black stone warehouse. Elsewhere the walls measured 2-1/4 in. (Fig. 18). The exterior covering of the building had a blocked appearance suggestive of the pressed tin sheathing which remains, but it appears to have been unpatterned. A nearly flat shed roof topped the structure. The eaves were trimmed with a boxed and decorated cornice as were the two projecting pediments which contained hoists above the loading doors on the north side. The vertically boarded loading doors had long metal hinges, and the lower door, which did not reach the ground, was fitted with a large lock. Equally spaced wooden buffers separated the two doors. Two plain-trimmed doors led from a railed landing east of the loading doors to the second-storey interior. Midway between the two sets of loading doors was a plain-trimmed, lugsilled eight-over-eight window on each floor (Figs. 35, 36). Doors and windows also patterned the western portion of the north wall (Figs. 51, 53). A drain pipe between the two small eastern doors reached from the roof to the ground; its main floor section appears to have been encased. A second drain pipe hung about the same distance east of the more westerly loading doors (Figs. 35, 36). Two windows on the upper storey and one on the north side of the lower storey overlooked the harbour during the late 1920s, but a decade later the latter had been closed up (Figs. 50, 54). The ground floor served a variety of merchants for warehousing their groceries, dry goods and lumber, and was sometime, like its predecessor, a bonded warehouse.¹² About 1915 the carpenters' shop from which the building has derived its title occupied the second storey (Fig. 18).