Silk Sails by Calvin Evans

Author:Calvin Evans [Evans, Calvin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS006020, HIS000000, BIO000000
Publisher: Breakwater Books
Published: 2008-09-20T04:00:00+00:00

Owning Ships and the Value of Shares

It is not possible to be very precise about the value of a ship or the value of one of the 64 shares in a ship because there are so many variables involved: the time period, age of the ship, condition of the ship, size of the ship, and so forth. Curiously, very little information on prices can be found in the ship registers. Some information may be gleaned from the amount of the mortgage the new owner took, but this could be equally imprecise because it may have been only a part of the total value, or other assets could have been included in the total mortgage.

Perhaps a few instances in giving the sale price of ships will help, using examples from Atlantic Canada and Quebec. In 1860 in Quebec a 970-ton ship was offered for sale for not less than 8000 pounds sterling, and a ship of 336 tons for not less than 2000 pounds sterling, and a third ship of 395 tons for not less than $14,000, so there was considerable variation, and the price undoubtedly depended on some of the factors mentioned previously. Capt. Allan MacPherson sold his 52-ton schooner in 1867 in Cape Breton for better than $10 per ton; the ship was 10 years old. Dame Henriette Paquet of Quebec sold her 32 shares in a one-year-old, 106-ton ship for $425 in 1875; that would make the shares worth just over $13 each.

In 1894 Elizabeth Munn of Harbour Grace sold her 114-ton schooner for $15 per ton; it was 19 years old. The 71-ton schooner Minot Light was sold by Thomas Hickman of Souris, Prince Edward Island, in 1889 for 560 pounds sterling and it was 10 years old. It had been built of white oak in Essex, Massachusetts, and it was advertised as “good for 30 years to come.” Henry Evans of Northern Arm, in 1899, sold his two-year-old schooner of 38 tons, the Cabot, for $1,150, which is better than $30 per ton. The Horwood Lumber Co. built the 372-ton Attainment in 1917 for $60,000 and sold it almost immediately to Campbell & McKay for $69,420, collecting a bounty of $5,952. In 1920 they built the 149-ton Nancy Lee for $41,392. The cost of building the 347-ton tern schooner E. P. Theriault in Belliveau Cove, Nova Scotia, in 1919 was reckoned to be about $62,000; that would be about $179 per ton. These instances provide a rough context in which we can look at the kind of money women were dealing with in owning ships. To help us understand the context a little better, it should be noted that 50 British pounds in 1938 would be equivalent to $3,500 U. S. in 2006, and 50,000 pounds sterling in 1846 was equal to 2.5 million pounds sterling in 1890; that means, in the latter case, that in a mere 44 years there was an increase of 50 fold.

Margaret Yarn, widow of Mose Ambrose, made a very astute purchase in 1929 when she bought the 17-ton schooner Bessie M.

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