Ship Lists
THE WALLACE LIST
The Great Lakes Museum is pleased to host the Wallace List
Preface
A list of over 7,600 square-rigged vessels, mainly 500 tons and over, built in the Eastern provinces of British North America from 1786-1920 compiled by Frederick William Wallace.
Frederick William Wallace was a noted journalist, photographer, historian, film director and novelist As an author he wrote thirteen books and numerous magazine articles. Two of his books are considered among the best in historical works for Canadian marine history. He first wrote Wooden Ships and Iron Men as a testament to the spirit of the Age of Sail. Following up with The Record Of Canadian Shipping in 1929 which originally had only 1,000 copies printed. These copies are held in esteem in many private collections, museum and libraries.
Note from the Author
In compiling this list of Canadian-built square-rigged sailing ships, the author has endeavoured to set down a full record of Canada’s accomplishments in wooden shipbuilding during the age of sail. […] The list has been confined mainly to square-rigged vessels of 500 tons and over. […] The vast fleet of small ships, barques, barquentines, brigs and brigantines built in British North America during the days of wooden hulls have been omitted unless they measured 500 tons and over […]. From this, an idea may be gained of the magnitude of Canada’s marine construction during the Golden Age of Sail.
The basis for this compilation work has been the Shipping Registers of the various ports, now stored in the Canadian Archives, Ottawa. The information thus obtained has been considerably augmented by the records of Lloyd’s Register, the American Shipmasters’ Association, the American Bureau of Shipping, American Lloyd’s and the Bureau Veritas. J. Murray Lawson’s “Yarmouth Shipping,” Narcisse Rosa’s “List of Quebec Ships” and data from unofficial and private sources have played a large part in the compilation. While each item has been checked, as far as is possible, to ensure its correctness, errors are bound to creep in. It is also possible that some vessels have been overlooked and not listed.’ ~ Frederick William Wallace.
Points of consideration when using this list as noted by Frederick William Wallace:
- Dimensions, Dimensions, tonnage and rig may differ in the listing of one ship. For instance, a barque, while originally listed as a ship, may have been sufficiently altered or measurement rule changes which would affect tonnage and dimensions.
- Ports of registry and ownerships often changed over the course of the vessels lifetime. In some cases the name given in the original register book differed from the name assigned following the launch of the vessel and transfer to a new port.
- Builder: there is an inconsistency in the name assigned to the builder. This is due to final credit; whereby the construction of the vessel was contracted to a shipbuilder or shipyard. In the case of the latter, often the it was the owner of the yard who was credited.
- Name: Wherever possible, details pertaining to the vessels ownership, employment and final-end are provided. Wallace notes; ‘ships built in Canada and engaged in the Australian and New Zealand emigrant trade of the ’fifties and ’sixties have been thus listed. Vessels owned and operated by the more important Canadian ownerships are designated together with their Canadian ports of registry. Most of the craft recorded herein held Canadian registries when launched, but these were transferred to British or other ports when the vessel was sold shortly afterwards. […] In this list, the Canadian port of registry has only been placed against vessels that were owned wholly or partly in Canada and accounted as being of the Canadian merchant marine.’
- Material: vessels made of ‘soft wood’ timber encompass spruce, tamarack or hackmatach (also known as larch), pine, etc. and vessels made of hard wood are indicated as such. Those made of both hard and soft wood are identified as being built with soft wood.
- Date: refers to year in which the vessel was known to be operating under another flag or name.