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

Halifax Waterfront Buildings: An Historical Report

by Susan Buggey

Red Store

Historical Information

The three-storey wooden building near the north front of the wharf has a very old foundation, three discernible main floor levels, and evidence of extensive repairs throughout the structure.

As late as 1803 part of the site of this building was still open water, although a long wharf just south of it extended into the harbour (Fig. 6). Within the next few years Charles Prescott and William Lawson, owners of the property from 1806, filled in the site and erected the first building to occupy the situation. The structure had a stone foundation and was already standing in 1810 when they sold the northern portion of their wharf to John Clark.¹ At a "red store," which was probably upon this foundation if it was not this building, Charles Hill & Company auctioned the rich prize goods of successful Nova Scotian privateering in American water during the War of 1812. This "red store" was apparently one of the "three large and convenient Stores" which were still owned by Prescott in 1821 but which were advertised to let by his tenants, Collins & Allison, in the spring of that year.² The buildings did not rent easily, and within the next two years Collins purchased the property, including the "large Red Store."³ As its northeast corner measured only about 218 ft. from Water Street,⁴ this building occupied at most the western 50 ft. of the present structure. By 1831, however, an edifice of the present dimensions stood upon the site (Fig. 11).

The 35-ft. width of the present Red Store⁵ suggests that this structure on the wharf may have been the one for which Enos Collins was pressing delivery of timber from the Liverpool (N.S.) firm of Seely & Gough in midsummer 1830. The members of the lower frame, accumulated from a variety of Queen's County entrepreneurs, were ready for shipping by July, although the "long pieces" for the second storey were apparently not sent until September. The other materials included "five long Sticks of 36 feet by 14 Inches square." These were probably of red pine, as it could be squared from 12 to 13-1/2 in., whereas a 36-ft. stick of white pine, apparently the material requested, squared 18 or 20 in. By August, "70 pieces of Joists with a quantity of other pieces" were also loading and were to be shipped with "a deck load of 14 Inch Timber by 17-1/2 feet long;" if the whipsaw was run twice through the latter, Seely & Gough instructed, it would answer the dimensions of the joists. William Foster supplied some "refuse Timber" at the same time. The whole of the merchantable scantling cost £250.⁶

The new building does not appear to have been occupied by any of the important firms situated on the wharf, but rather to have been rented as advantageously as possible by its owner, Enos Collins. During the early 1830s it may have been occupied by auctioneer Edward Lawson or commission merchant Edward Shortis, who dealt in such groceries as Quebec beef and pork, Genesee flour and Digby herring.⁷ By the time of the Trent crisis of the early 1860s, the British War Department already rented a part of this store, and after 1863 they probably rented all of it. During the shortage of military storehouses they appear to have continued their lease until at least 1870.⁸ The "long wooden salt and fish store" which Enos Collins withheld from his sale of the eastern portion of the wharf to Joseph and Robert Seeton in 1865 had practically the same dimensions as the present Red Store. Despite the unlikelihood of a store of such description being rented by the War Department, so prominent a tenant paying a reliable and no doubt substantial rent goes far to explain the reservation by a man himself no longer active in shipping. The sale of the building to the Seetons in 1872, after Collins had died and the War Department had apparently vacated the premises, confirms the probability of this reserved building having been the Red Store.⁹ Moreover, no other structure on the wharf in the mid-1860s fits the description given (Fig. 13).

Uninterrupted by the transfer of the wharf from the Seetons to Robert Pickford and William Black in 1876,¹⁰ a succession of commission merchants occupied the wooden warehouse from the early 1870s. William Kandick's wholesale groceries, tobacco and imported spirits appear to have been sold there for nearly 15 years, while by the early 1880s William Ackhurst—auctioneer, commission merchant, provision dealer, city alderman, and long-term tenant on the wharf—had apparently moved over from the south side of the property.¹¹ From 1878 until the mid 1880s the upper floor of the warehouse was used for the uncommercial purpose of holding Sunday services for seamen. Although the promoters of the St. Andrew's Waterside Mission failed to convince shipping men of the practical benefits of this evangelical enterprise, Pickford & Black apparently granted the premises rent free. Sir E. C. Inglefield, the admiral on the North American station, acted as lay reader and his ship's crew as choir for the struggling mission.¹²

In the late 1870s two long-term occupants established their ground-floor offices in the building. Isaac H. Mathers initiated a more than 40-year tenancy for his firm in 1876. Beginning as a commission merchant, he dealt principally in forest products. By the turn of the century, however, he had acquired not only important English timber connections but also several steamship agencies, a large chartering business, and three Scandinavian consulships. Regarded as one of the best-known businessmen in Halifax, he retired in 1906 in favour of his son and was subsequently appointed as Canadian member of an imperial commission to inquire into the existence of an alleged shipping combine.¹³ In 1879 R. B. Seeton, in a reorganized firm, returned to the wharf he had sold three years earlier. He continued as a shipping agent and, within 20 years, had developed his commission trade into a prosperous wholesale grocery business. Sugar, molasses, flour, fish, beans and dried fruit were among the many products the firm imported and distributed through the province. In 1916 the company occupied nearly half the building and had stored there almost $20,000 worth of groceries.¹⁴ For 25 years from the mid-1860s, the ship builder David McPherson maintained an office on the wharf, apparently in this building. During that time, he was a city alderman, mayor of Halifax, a member of the legislative assembly, and a provincial cabinet minister. William Chisholm, a lumber and commission merchant, also had premises in the Red Store for about 20 years (Fig. 30).¹⁵

After 1880 the building was increasingly divided among numerous tenants. Through the 1880s, they continued to be principally commission merchants who required substantial warehousing space rather than formal offices (Fig. 16). By the mid-1890s, however, offices clearly supplemented the warehousing facility (Fig. 17), and later in the decade the number of tenants increased by about 50 per cent. Thereafter, the number of lessees remained fairly stable, although a more formal arrangement of offices apparently took place during the 1930s.¹⁶ Such a transformation of the warehouse reflected the expansion of services and the pressures upon space concomitant with the development of a large urban community.

Pickford & Black continued to own the building and to rent its premises to a variety of short and long term tenants until the property was expropriated by the City of Halifax in 1968.¹⁷

Architectural Information

Although a building of the dimensions of the present one was already standing on the site in 1831 (Fig. 11), no information has been discovered as to the style, construction or alteration of the structure until nearly half a century later. By then the building was three storeys high and bore a hipped roof. At the east end four windows lighted the third storey, while the two on each of the lower floors flanked a central loading door. A single dormer appears on the north side of the roof above a loading door; elsewhere the north wall is shown as containing numerous though irregularly positioned windows (Fig. 23).

By the 1890s substantial alterations had apparently been made to the building.¹⁸ It remained a three-storey structure which was believed to have been "constructed completely of southern hard pine"¹⁹ and which bore a hipped roof. The exterior was clapboarded and coated with fireproof paint (Fig. 17). The roofing material is unknown, but shingles, such as those used on the three-storey office and warehouse of H. H. Fuller & Company at 45 Upper Water Street, would have been the usual covering for such a structure (Fig. 17). On the south side of the roof were three dormers, and on the north side two. In addition, there were at least three skylights on the north side and one on the west. The corners of the roof were covered with a wood or metal overlap. A hot-water heating system had been installed in the building (Fig. 17), but four evenly spaced chimneys still remained. The windows along the north wall reveal a fairly symmetrical pattern which hints at an earlier façade of the building. The shuttered casements in three parallel rows along the east section were continued beyond the eastern loading door on the top floor of the middle section; beneath them, however, the size and arrangement of the windows had been altered to larger, double-hung sashes (Fig. 32). Likewise, along the south side, numerous openings are discernible, but their pattern cannot be identified (Fig. 30). The windows on the ends of the building were of the most motley types and positions. On the east façade, three six-over-six sash windows lighted the third storey; however the fourth aperture near the north side of the front appears to have been a smaller single sash with only three panes. The window below it on the second floor was again of a different size and may, like the large centre window, have been a casement. There seems also to have been a single window on the ground floor very near the south edge and therefore not aligned with the most southerly opening on the third storey (Fig. 32). At the west end were four windows, all apparently plain-trimmed and slipsilled, single-sash, flat openings. The two windows on the second storey had two-over-two sashes which differed from both the small casement on the third floor and the large storefront window on the ground floor. Two steps up from the wharf and near the south edge of the façade was a plain-trimmed door opening with a flush transom (Fig. 30).

By 1914 the south wall had two distinct characters (Fig. 40). The eastern section retained much evidence of the original warehousing function of the building. Beneath a hoistway dormer were loading doors on the second and third storeys. Buffers separated them, and small single windows flanked them on either side. On the ground floor the four long windows east of the doorway to H. I. Mathers' office may still have been shuttered. Beyond a similar window west of the door hung a leader connected to the gutter at the edge of the roof. In the central section three unevenly spaced and sized doors were followed on the ground floor by five double-hung windows with two-over two sashes. Above, but not aligned with these windows and doors, were seven slipsilled windows which extended to beneath a loading door at the eastern end of the third floor of the section. A window similar to those flanking the loading doors nearer the harbour stood west of the loading door and above the third and fourth windows of the second storey. In the westerly portion of the building, after a wider space than separated the previous apertures, two parallel windows on the first and second storeys continued the pattern of the central section. One more, similar window appears on the ground floor near the west end, but the photograph does not show the upper portion of the western half of the building. Tenants' nameplates flat against the façade and above their respective entrances had discreetly replaced the earlier signs protruding from the south wall. A very small one-storey appendage abutted on the west side (Fig. 18).

The present flat tar and gravel roof dates from the aftermath of a serious fire which swept the upper storeys of the store in early December of 1916. Beginning at the southwestern end of the structure, the fire worked through the interior partitions, gained stronger hold in the centre of the building, and broke out through the roof. At one stage the building was "practically a mass of flames from end to end." "The whole upper portion of the structure" was destroyed, but the ground and second storeys appear to have suffered only scorching and smoke and water damage.²⁰ There was talk of replacing the building with a concrete structure in the spring, but within two months of the fire tenants were already returning to their former premises.²¹ The several alterations evident in the south wall by 1929 may or may not have been performed as part of the repairs following the fire. In the eastern section four windows replaced the loading door and flanking windows on the second storey, while on the first floor the door was closed up and the row of windows, now eight in number, extended westward into the central section. Above them three windows had been added on the second storey, and the third-floor loading door had been removed (Fig. 49).

The much divided interior of the Red Store reflects the change in its function which occurred during the late 19th century. Some subdivision, of the main floor at least, had evidently taken place by the late 1880s, and extensive breaking up into offices followed shortly thereafter (Fig. 17), as both the interior decor and the increased number of tenants reveal. The double-hung sashes of the central portion of the north wall and the long two-over-two sash windows of the south façade were probably installed during this period for the principal tenant of the building, R. B. Seeton and Company. In 1904 this firm's redecorated premises in the southwestern portion of the main floor, "resplendent in white paint with a surface of enamel," were rated "one of the smartest looking offices in the city."²²