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

Halifax Waterfront Buildings: An Historical Report

by Susan Buggey

Bibliographic Essay

A report primarily for restoration purposes draws upon a wide variety of published and unpublished sources. While material of a directly or indirectly structural nature becomes of principal interest to the historian, this is not in most cases the emphasis of the papers consulted, Moreover, many materials of a non-structural character are also required by the researcher.

Because of the considerable controversy generated during the struggle to save the Halifax waterfront buildings, both architectural and historical examinations of the complex predate the present departmental study. Photographs and plans presented in October 1960 as part of the Halifax Waterfront Proposal for a Maritime Museum of Canada remain at the Nova Scotia Museum where the Maritime Museum, formerly in the Ordnance Yard adjoining the buildings, is now housed. Some of the buildings also appear in the "Halifax-Darthmouth Survey Report. A Study for the National Inventory of Buildings," prepared in 1964 by C. A. Fowler & Company, an architectural and engineering firm of Halifax, with Marion Moore and John Stevens. The buildings are treated in detail in "The Halifax Waterfront — A Feasibility Study," commissioned from Keith L. Graham & Associates, Architects, of Halifax in October 1968. Harvey Freeman, as a student of the School of Architecture at the Nova Scotia Technical College, submitted a "Report on the Historical Halifax Waterfront with Measured Drawings of Four Mid-nineteenth Century Offices." A number of articles, mainly by Marion Moore. have also appeared in various magazines and newspapers of the maritime region. Some of the buildings are, as well, featured in L. B. Jenson's Vanishing Halifax (Halifax: 1968) and in the Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia publication Founded Upon a Rock; Historic Buildings of Halifax and the Vicinity Standing in 1967 (Halifax: 1967).

The most obvious point of beginning research is with the standard histories of Nova Scotia. Of these, T. B. Akins "History of Halifax City" (Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, Vol. VIII, 1892) is unquestionably the most helpful. Akins provides detailed information on aspects of the physical evolution of the town as well as the activities of the townsmen. T. C. Haliburton's classic, An Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia (2 vols., Halifax: 1829), concentrates upon the Acadian presence in the province and its very early British settlement. Beamish Murdoch's A History of Nova-Scotia, or Acadie (3 vols., Halifax: 1865-67), on the other hand, is heavily dominated by political events and is based upon documentary sources rather than, like much of the most useful of Akins, upon the author's personal familiarity with individuals and points of interest. Despite its title, Duncan Campbell's Nova Scotia, in its Historical, Mercantile and Industrial Relations (Montreal: 1873) emphasized the political rather than the commercial aspects of provincial growth, while A. W. H. Eaton's early 20th-century essays (Americana, 1915-19, passim) are fragmented studies which rarely touch upon the economic life of the previous century. Phyllis Blakeley's "Business in Halifax" in Glimpses of Halifax 1867-1900 (Halifax: 1949) is a concise study of late 19th-century commercial emergence in the city. T. W. Acheson's "The National Policy and the Industrialization of the Maritimes, 1880-1910" (Acadiensis, Vol. I, No. 2, spring 1972, pp. 3-28) brings new insights and techniques to the study of the industrial development of the region at the turn of the century.

Various other books and articles have also been found relevant. Among the latter are George Nichols' "Notes on Nova Scotian Privateers" and G. F. Butler's "The Early Organization and Influence of Halifax Merchants" in the Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society (Vol. XIII, 1908, pp. 111-52, and Vol. XXV, 1942, pp. 1-16); Janet Mullins' "The Liverpool Packet" and J. S. Martell's "Halifax during and after the War of 1812" in The Dalhousie Review (Vol. XIV, 1934-35, pp. 193-202 and Vol. XXIII, 1943-44, pp. 289-304); W. R. Copp's "Nova Scotian Trade During the War of 1812" and S. A. Saunders' "The Maritime Provinces and the Reciprocity Treaty" reprinted in G.A. Rawlyk, ed., Historical Essays on the Atlantic Provinces (Toronto: 1967, pp. 82-98 and 161-78); Bray Hammond's "Banking in Canada before Confederation, 1792-1867," in W. T. Easterbrook and M. H. Watkins. eds., Approaches to Canadian Economic History (Toronto: 1967, pp. 127-68), and Joseph Schull's "The Black Joke" in Weekend Magazine (Vol. 8, Nos. 30 and 31, 1958). C. H.J. Snider's Under the Red Jack, Privateers of the Maritime Provinces of Canada in the War of 1812 (Toronto: 1928) as well contains a chapter on Collins' famous Liverpool Packet.

Because the waterfront buildings to be restored are situated on wharfs which were immediately south of the headquarters of the British army's Ordnance department, a variety of military command records provide information about the structures. First of all, they sometimes appear on early 19th-century plans of the Ordnance Yard and environs before the Commanding Royal Engineers abandoned the practice of showing buildings outside the Ordnance wall on departmental maps. Moreover, the proximity of the site to the yard resulted in an early entrepreneurial offer to sell the property to the army establishment. Later, the convenient location of the buildings made them prime rental space when the Ordnance storekeeper had insufficient stores within the yard to house his supplies. Contracts, correspondence, and plans in War Office 44 and 55 and in PAC Record Group 8, C series, therefore afford evidence as to usage and structure of neighbouring privately owned buildings.

Fire constituted one of the most prevalent and most dreaded urban enemies of the 19th century, and fire damage frequently resulted in significant structural alterations to existing buildings. The Bicentennial of the Halifax Fire Department. 200 Years of Fire-fighting. 1768-1968 (Halifax: 1968) contains a brief, illustrated and very general account of the evolution of fire-fighting practices in the town and includes a short discussion of several major 19th-century fires. The Fire Department itself, however, possesses much more useful records in the form of registers of all fires reported in Halifax since 1907. These provide not only the date of the conflagration and the address and ownership of the property concerned, but also information as to the insurance carried, the extent of damage incurred, and the type of building burned. From there, newspaper reports can also be easily traced. Newspapers usually gave extensive coverage to fires in the town, and although their reports concentrate upon the drama of fighting the blaze, they frequently offer incidental information as to the size and type of structure, the situation of apertures and the style of roof. If the circumstances surrounding the fire appeared suspicious, a magisterial investigation was often ordered. The testimony of such a hearing upon a waterfront fire in 1904 is found in the Pickford & Black papers at the Public Archives of Nova Scotia. It describes in detail such features as types of structures, their apertures and connections to adjoining premises, and the contents of the buildings.

The Fire Department is not, however, the only branch of city government whose files contain materials of use to the structural historian. The building inspector's office at City Hall possesses four registers of building permits issued since 1892 (1908-28 missing). The information is scanty and often incomplete, and no permits exist to elucidate what is recorded; nevertheless, from ownership and street reference it is possible to determine when construction or repairs occurred, and sometimes the lists include a brief description of the work undertaken. The Engineering and Works Department, in addition, possesses an extensive collection of manuscript plans of various properties in the city. Dating mainly from the 1870s and later, these reflect the appointment in 1872 of a full-time city engineer. His annual reports regarding streets, sewers and city buildings are found in the published Report of the Several Departments of the City Government of Halifax, Nova Scotia, (Halifax; various dates) which series also contains reports of the Board of Works, the mayor, a city architect in the 1860s, and committees on streets and city property. The Public Archives of Nova Scotia has a fairly complete run of the annual reports from the early 1880s onward and has also some late 19th-century minute books of the city council.

Further useful records relating to property include assessment rolls, city directories, and registered deeds, leases and mortgages. Few assessment records for Halifax have survived. The Public Archives of Nova Scotia has, nevertheless, one book dated 1817 but probably earlier (1812?), as well as several books of the 1820s and 1830s, 1841 and 1862 (RG 35-A). The institution is shortly to receive from City Hall the similar ward books for ca. 1879-1905. These enumerate owners and occupants by ward and street in an approximately geographic sequence; the assessable value of real and personal property, in addition to the amount of tax due, is indicated. McAlpine's Halifax City Directory for 1869-70 to 1929. published annually, also provides detailed information as to occupancy, cross-listed nominally and professionally, Nugent's Business Directory of the City of Halifax for 1858-9 (Halifax; 1858), The Halifax, Nova Scotia Business Directory for 1863 compiled by Luke Hutchinson (Halifax: 1863), and Hutchinson's Nova Scotia Directory for 1866-67 (Halifax: 1866) are similar, earlier compilations. Property deeds for the city are registered in the Halifax County Court House. Primarily, these record the transfer of land ownership, but they may give, as well, details of buildings included in or excluded from the property transfer and the size or type of structures adjoining. The deeds are often accompanied by mortgages which reveal lines of financial connection where the holder of the mortgage is not, as was frequent, the previous owner. Occasional legal agreements between property owners also afford information regarding such arrangements as docks, joint fences. and overhanging roof fixtures.

Not only city records but the files of several federal departments may be helpful in tracing structural history. Many privately owned buildings were used in the 19th century for governmental purposes; of these, some records as to facilities, repairs or alterations, and rent may remain. For instance, in addition to the fully indexed manuscript records of the Department of Public Works are their annual reports upon government owned or rented buildings which are published in the sessional papers. Moreover, many prominent merchants had on their wharfs at least part of a building used as a bonded warehouse, in which goods were stored awaiting transhipment or local delivery upon the payment of import duties. Owners were required to submit plans of the warehouses to be so designated for prior approval by the local customs officer. The Customs and Excise Department may therefore have records concerning such houses. Those for Halifax, however, are scant, most apparently having been destroyed accidentally in a fire at the customs house or deliberately in the subsequent demolition of the building. Ambitious merchants also frequently obtained appointments as consuls of foreign countries to facilitate trade relations or to handle international shipping matters arising near the Canadian coast. The Department of External Affairs records date only from the establishment of the department in 1909. Application to the several consulates whose representatives in the late 19th and early 20th centuries had offices on Pickford & Black's wharf revealed that surviving records relate mainly to appointments and resignations which can more readily be determined by referral to the city directories or the annual lists submitted by the Department of External Affairs for publication in the sessional papers. The current work of federal departments, such as Energy, Mines and Resources' charting of the water level of Halifax Harbour, may also prove relevant.

Business publications to advertise the commercial interests of the city, like Halifax and Its Business: containing Historical Sketch, and Description of the City and its Institutions (Halifax; 1876), Our Dominion, Mercantile and Manufacturing Interests, Historical and Commercial Sketches of Halifax and Environs (Toronto: 1887), and The City of Halifax, The Capital of Nova Scotia, Canada, Its Advantages and Facilities (Halifax: 1909), contain succinct accounts of the principal local companies. They usually refer to the previous history of the firm and its premises as well as to the main fields of its activity. Published histories of corporations, such as Victor Ross' A History of the Canadian Bank of Commerce with an Account of the Other Banks which now form Part of its Organization (3 vols., Toronto: 1920-34), when available, provide more detailed description of all aspects of a company's operation. Manuscript records of business firms are, of course, a rich source of material when their creators have been the owners or occupants of the buildings being studied. The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Archives was unable to provide any information regarding the Halifax Banking Company building, but the Bank of Nova Scotia Archives afforded some comparative notes concerning plans, fixtures and the bank vault. Moreover, although many papers of both extinct and existing companies have been destroyed, some have been housed in public institutions. The Public Archives of Nova Scotia. for instance, has several fine collections, including Pickford & Black's registers for Lloyd's of all ships entering and leaving the port of Halifax. The Archives of Dalhousie University is rapidly acquiring papers of Nova Scotian firms, among which William Stairs, Son & Morrow, J. E. Morse & Company, and Pickford & Black are represented. These records include items like bills, invoices, cash books and bills of lading which show quickly with whom, where and upon what scale a firm was doing business. The bills of important companies as well frequently bore a sketch of their premises as letterhead. Correspondence and letterbooks afford a fuller picture of the company's activities, including the nature, range and volume of its operations. John Grant's and William Forsyth & Company's letterbooks (PAC, MG23, C8, and PANS, MG3, No. 150), for example, illustrate some late 18th-century activities of lessees and owners of the wharf, while the Seely & Gough letterbook (PANS) describes arrangements regarding building materials ordered by Enos Collins in 1830. Daily journals, apparently kept by many companies, also reveal the particular interests of a firm and sometimes harbour forgotten photographs of significant events in the life of the company. I. H. Mathers & Son's journals and Pickford & Black's similar diaries of the 1920s will shortly be available at Dalhousie. The founding members of a firm are usually named in newspaper advertisements, as are subsequent changes in partnership arrangements. Under the Nova Scotia Companies' Act (R.S. 1900. C. 128). firms were incorporated by duly registering with the provincial registrar of joint stock companies; that office's files do not, however, include earlier firms nor do they retain information concerning extinct companies. Prior to 1900, incorporation was obtained by individual acts of the provincial legislature. of which record may be found in the statutes and assembly journals with their related papers.

Records not only of the firms themselves but of those with whom they did business may provide material of structural importance. Inquiries in this line regarding the Halifax waterfront buildings have, nevertheless, proved unrewarding. Insurance companies do not normally retain detailed information concerning a building more than three years after the expiry of a policy upon it. Holding and mortgage companies or construction and engineering firms with which the owners of the buildings dealt may, however, still have records of their transactions.

Newspapers can provide a great deal of information regarding the commercial life of a community and the role in it of particular individuals, firms, lines of business or geographic areas. In addition, advertisements reveal occupation and usage of buildings as well as descriptions of property for rent or sale. A wide variety of Halifax papers is available at the Public Archives of Nova Scotia and for the 1850s to 1870s at the National Library, Ottawa. Major alterations to premises of important firms or construction of significant buildings may be noticed by the daily press, but less generalized business journals such as The Maritime Merchant and Commercial Review are more likely to comment. The Commercial News, the publication of the Halifax Board of Trade, usually notes managerial changes in local firms as well as containing from time to time histories of long-standing Haligonian companies.

Information about prominent figures who may have been associated with the buildings is available from a wide range of sources. The most obvious of these is the published biography or other work focusing upon the individual, such as C. B. Fergusson's Letters and Papers of Hon. Enos Collins (Halifax: 1959) and Kay Grant's Samuel Cunard, Pioneer of Atlantic Steamship (Toronto: 1967), a rather romanticized view of a close associate of Collins. Personal papers, either in archives or privately held, are of course most helpful, but these exist for comparatively few citizens. City directories, regional business directories, civic lists of aldermen and mayors, and general reference compilations from C. B. Fergusson's A Directory of the Members of the Legislative Assembly of Nova Scotia 1758-1958 (Halifax: 1958) to John F. Kennedy's Who's Who and Why in Canada (and Newfoundland), A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Living Canadians and Notable Men of Newfoundland (Ottawa: 1912) are among the many tools available to provide basic biographical data. Newspaper articles in the possession of firms or families, obituaries and wills may also be of use.

For restoration purposes, nevertheless, pictorial representations, not written records, are the most valuable documentary source available. The extensive collections of the Nova Scotia Museum and the Public Archives of Nova Scotia both contain photographs of the waterfront buildings to be restored. Sketches and photographs of business premises also occur in advertisements in newspapers (particularly special issues) and city directories. More appear, however, in such advertising pamphlets as Rogers Photographic Advertising Album (Halifax: Joseph S. Rogers, 1871, reprinted for the Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia, 1970) and The City of Halifax, The Capital of Nova Scotia, Canada, Its Advantages and Facilities (Halifax: 1909), which were intended specifically to promote the commercial interests of the city. Furthermore, the provincial Legislative Library and the Halifax Regional Library, as well as the Public Archives of Nova Scotia, have good collections of late-19th- and early-20th-century illustrated guide books to the city; although these normally depict public buildings, views of the elegant Granville and Hollis streets, showing privately owned business edifices, are not uncommon. In addition, Archibald MacMechan's prolific writings about Halifax frequently contain both photographs and sketches of the city. A search through files of such periodicals as the Illustrated London News and the Canadian Illustrated News (Montreal) proved disappointing. While extensively illustrated, their issues picture almost exclusively public buildings with occasional houses, but very rarely include such mundane structures as long standing offices and warehouses. The photographic collection of the Public Archives of Canada reveals a similar emphasis, while their selection of drawings and paintings was likewise unproductive of specific illustrations of the waterfront buildings. Inquiries of several federal government departments indicate that most of their dormant records, including any old photographs, have already been transferred to the Public Archives. The notable exception to this is the National Air Photo Library (Department of Energy, Mines and Resources) whose well-catalogued files date from the early 1920s. The Notman Collection in the McCord Museum, Montreal, includes a number of excellent late 19th-century views of the Halifax waterfront, but all are too distant to distinguish the particular buildings of the Pickford & Black and Central wharfs. A study of the catalogues of various Canadiana collections (such as those of the J. Ross Robertson and Sigmund Samuel Collections in the Toronto Public Library and of Manoir Richelieu at Murray Bay), as well as applications to archives and museums in the Maritime Provinces and New England, did not discover pictorial representations of the buildings unavailable in Halifax. An advertisement placed in The Chronicle-Herald evoked little response and failed to produce any significant material. In fact, the most prolific single source of photographs in this project proved to be the old files still retained by companies which had once occupied the buildings to be restored.

Maps as well as photographs are valuable documentary sources for the structural historian. They often give the first evidence of the existence of a structure whose dimensions are similar to those of the present building, while maps without buildings may show alterations to a site such as the extension of a wharf or the alteration of a street. In addition to plans in the possession of the Engineering and Works Department of the City of Halifax, the Public Archives of Nova Scotia and of Canada have extensive map collections. The latter's Halifax holdings are, however, not large, and a dearth of city maps from 1800 to 1860 prevails in both Halifax and Ottawa. An excellent and detailed plan of the central portion of the town in 1831 is housed in War Office 55/2594, but it is not until Hopkins' City Atlas of Halifax, Nova Scotia (Halifax: 1878), nearly a half-century later, that a map of equal precision has been found. Although "A Panoramic View of the City of Halifax Nova Scotia 1879" affords a fine visual representation of the city, numerous inaccuracies, such as the omission of the south wall of the Ordnance Yard, make confirmation of its detail from other sources necessary. The series of urban maps prepared by Charles E. Goad in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are, in contrast, both specific and reliable. Frequently known as insurance plans, they illustrate by symbols not only the size, window patterns, and roof types of existing structures, but also indicate such minute features as cornices, fire-walls (including any openings), hoists, partitions, and connections with adjoining buildings. Their completeness varies, nevertheless, from structure to structure, and only four of Halifax, covering the period from 1889 to 1939, have been located. Two of these are in the British Museum, London, one in possession of the city clerk's office, Halifax, and the latest in possession of the Nova Scotia Board of Insurance Underwriters.

Consultation of a wide range of sources and attention particularly to those outside public repositories have been found most useful in completing this report on the Halifax waterfront buildings.