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

Halifax Waterfront Buildings: An Historical Report

by Susan Buggey

Privateer's Warehouse

Historical Information

A local tradition claims that this fortress-like warehouse dates from about 1800 and that its title derives from Enos Collins having stored there the rich prize goods he gained in privateering during the Napoleonic Wars. As is common in legend, there is some basis in fact and a good deal of romanticizing in both the dating of the building and Collins' particular association with it.

By the mid-1780s the influential Alexander Brymer had already erected structures from Water Street to near the harbour along his wharf which extended southward from the new Ordnance Yard (Fig. 5). Here at the turn of the century, Charles Hill regularly auctioned a variety of Canadian and other goods. By 1803, when Quebec merchant Robert Lester attempted to sell the property to the British military establishment as an extension of the Ordnance Yard, "a large Building" stood on the wharf. In 1805 "a very extensive Lumber-Yard" adjoined the building which was "commonly used as a stable, coach-house, &c," but which was considered "suitable for various useful purposes."¹ It was not shown on the plan accompanying Lester's proposal, although two other structures, apparently of wood, were precisely indicated (Fig. 6). A stone edifice on the property would not, however, have escaped Lester's attention; nor would it have passed unnoticed by the Commanding Royal Engineer who based his opposition to purchasing the site in part upon the prevalence of wooden buildings in the area. In a town where he felt it necessary to justify requesting the appointment of a successor to the master builder and mason employed in his department, such premises as the Privateer's Warehouse would have been a sufficient rarity to attract his and others' notice.² It must therefore be concluded that no such major stone structure stood upon the wharf by 1805.

Subsequent plans of 1812 to 1819 (Figs. 8, 9) likewise fail to indicate the erection of Clark's "noble Warehouse."³ By 1812 three buildings stood on the wharf. Two were on its north side against the wall of the Ordnance Yard. The British military establishment rented the eastern one as a carpenters' shop from 1811 until at least 1819 and the larger one at the head of the wharf from 1813 until mid-1818.⁴ The third, at the head of the wharf on its south side, was an ell-shaped structure which still stood in 1831 (Fig. 11). By 1814 a rectangular building running north and south had been added about half-way down the south side of the wharf, somewhat east of the ell-shaped structure and west of the site of the present stone warehouse (Fig. 9).

Although the Ordnance department continued to use this plan of 1814 through 1819, it cannot, however, be claimed to represent accurately the structures on the wharf to that date for the plan failed to make alteration for "the new store of Mr. John Clarke" occupied in the late fall of 1816 by George Grassie and Company while their own premises, destroyed by fire, were being rebuilt.⁵ As a building of the dimensions and location of the present structure is the only addition to the wharf shown by a very detailed map of 1831 (Fig. 11), this new store appears, in fact, to have been the present stone warehouse. The edifice likewise appears on Toler's plan of 1830 in which only the three early stone buildings of the complex area are shown (Fig. 10).

Such a dating of the Privateer's Warehouse in itself substantially discounts the legendary associations of the structure. There is, however, further evidence. It will be acknowledged that Enos Collins, still resident in Liverpool (N.S.). was already associated with the partnership of Prescott and Lawson in ownership of the brig Liverpool before they purchased Lester's wharf in 1806.⁶ He may well thereafter have made their wharf his Haligonian headquarters, perhaps staying at Mrs. Ann Bell's house of entertainment at its head when he visited the town, or renting a store nearer the water when he had goods to sell. In January 1809, nevertheless, when Prescott and Lawson expanded their firm, it was not Collins but his later associate Joseph Allison who was taken into the partnership. Moreover, only in 1811 did Collins begin to advertise his situation in the commercial columns of the Halifax newspapers. He had by then, on the eve of the dissolution of Prescott, Lawson & Company, purchased from Charles Prescott the south side of the wharf which later bore Collins' name for half a century.⁷ At about the same time he bought in Vice Admiralty sales a dilapidated slaver The Black Joke, which he repaired and renamed the Liverpool Packet. While awaiting the outbreak of war with the United States when the schooner might be licensed as a privateering vessel, he ran it regularly between Halifax and Liverpool (N.S.). It was this ship's infamous record that established Collins' reputation as a privateer operator and reaped his most substantial shipping profits.⁸ By then the land on which the Privateer's Warehouse stands was already owned by John Clark who must have occupied the only building not rented to the Ordnance Department for the business he presumably transferred from Fairbanks' Wharf at the time of his purchase in 1810.⁹ While Collins' association with the site of the complex of historical buildings may therefore have begun as early as 1806, documentary evidence has not been found to support the legend that Collins' privateering activities were centred in the old stone warehouse which now stands on the Central Wharf.

On the other hand, by the early 1820s, John Clark had established himself as an important figure in the Haligonian merchant community. He not only styled himself "merchant" in 1822 rather than "carpenter" as in 1810, but was Halifax agent for the Boston packet and a partner in the exclusive Halifax Banking Company. The Privateer's Warehouse was commensurate with the position, and he very likely occupied the stone building himself with the variety of foodstuffs and construction materials he regularly received from American ports.¹⁰ By the late 1830s his wharf had, however, been rented and apparently continued subsequently to be leased, for instance in the 1850s to George H. Starr. Starr himself probably filled the stone warehouse with the American and Canadian foodstuffs which were frequently auctioned on the wharf on his behalf.¹¹

The Clarks, father John and sons Charles and William, owned the wharf from 1810 to 1859 when it was sold by William's widow to Robert Fraser, who immediately disposed of the eastern half of the property to William Tarr and William Chisholm, commission merchants like himself. Three years later, Enos Collins foreclosed their unpaid mortgage, owned the land and buildings briefly himself, and then sold them in 1864 to George C. Harvey, a commission merchant and insurance agent.¹² Harvey's long occupation terminated in the early 1880s when he removed to the United States.¹³ In 1886 Joseph Wood, a shipping agent, rented the premises, and he probably managed the property until 1904 when he purchased it from Harvey's executors (Fig. 17). From the mid-1890s Wood apparently rented the stone warehouse to a variety of tenants, including a dealer in junk and marine stores and a wholesale sugar and flour merchant.¹⁴ More recently, during the 20-year ownership of C. J. Burke & Company, the building was occupied as a fish warehouse. The City of Halifax purchased the property from Burke's widow in 1962.¹⁵

Architectural Information

Heavy ironstone walls, symmetrical freestone-quoined apertures along the the exposed north wall, and a pitched roof are the most immediately discernible features of the 150-year-old building. Apparently built adjoining a long wooden structure which once stood to the south (Fig. 6), the south wall was constructed without windows and has remained unopened. The north wall, by contrast, contains five windows on each of the second and third storeys,¹⁶ while on the ground floor loading doors stand in place of the second and fourth windows. All are headed by large plain lintels and surrounded by quoins; the windows are based by sills. The east and west walls constitute gable ends to the structure, and both appear to have been originally free standing. The east end fronted on the water, and the west end on an enclosed yard which began about halfway down the wharf and continued, north of the building and parallel to the wall of the Ordnance Yard, to the water's edge (Fig. 11).

On the first and second storeys of the east end were loading doors near the north side and windows near the south side; in line above them on the third floor were two smaller windows. In the attic stood an arched window, trimmed with quoins like the openings on the north wall. At a later date the windows near the south side, the lower loading door and the arched upper aperture were filled in; the second-floor loading door and the third-storey window above it allowed access between the Privateer's Warehouse and the adjoining wooden store. Likewise, at the west end, the windows — one near the north side on the first floor, two on each of the second and third floors, and one in the attic — have been bricked up. As the floor levels of the Simon's Building coincide with the closed windows, it is apparent that the work was done in 1854 when the structure was erected.¹⁷ During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the three-and-one-half storey structure bore a pitched slate roof (Figs. 16, 17, 18, 23). No early historic photographs of this building have been found, but aerial views of the 1920s to 1940s show two skylights on each side of the roof (Figs. 51, 55).