page_title: Sackville, New Brunswick
section_title: Industrialization and shipbuilding
hierarchical_section_title: Sackville, New Brunswick / History / Industrialization and shipbuilding
caption_attribution_description: English: Self made photo. Retouched and cropped.
context_page_description: Sackville 2016 population: 5,331 is a town in southeastern New Brunswick, Canada. It is home to Mount Allison University, a primarily undergraduate liberal arts university. Historically based on agriculture, shipbuilding, and manufacturing, the economy is now driven by the university and tourism. Initially part of the French colony of Acadia, the settlement became part of the British colony of Nova Scotia in 1755 following the Expulsion of the Acadians.
context_section_description: By the 1830s tanneries, leather goods factories, carriage factories and blacksmith shops were active around Morice Mill Pond (renamed recently to Silver Lake) a few kilometres north of the current town centre. The centre of activity started to shift to the present downtown area when in 1836 William Crane moved his business to the site of the former town hall, and built his house across the street. He also donated land for a small Methodist chapel that was built in 1838 and later evolved into the much larger Sackville Methodist/United Church. In 1839, Charles Frederick Allison donated money and land to establish the Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy, which became Mount Allison University. This was followed by the development of shipyards on the Tantramar River. Official records for shipbuilding in New Brunswick began in 1824, but by that time shipbuilding was already well under way with several ships of over 100 tons having been built.
  In 1862 there was a shipyard at the site of the current railway station, and another to the east at Dixon's Landing at the end of Landing Road. A public wharf was built there by local merchants in 1840–41. The shopkeepers were looking to import products and export staples such as lumber, grindstones and building stones. In the 1870s, a spur line connecting the Intercolonial Railway to the wharf was built.
  Shipbuilding and coastal trading thrived between 1824 and 1872. The last was built in 1896. The largest was the Sarah Dixon, built by Charles Dixon in 1856 at 1465 tons. That same year, Christopher Boultenhouse launched the 192 ton steamship The Westmorland, which carried passengers, mail and freight between Shediac, Summerside, Charlottetown, and Pictou from 1857 to 1863 for the governments of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
  By the 1870s the wharf was inadequate since vessels over 200 tons had only the end berth. A new wharf was added in 1911, but much shipping business had already been lost because of the lack of proper wharf. Local folklore reports that a ship never tied up at the new wharf. The wharf and the end of Landing Road was on a meander of the Tantramar River, but in the 1920s the meander was cut off due to erosion and silting, leaving the site without access to the sea.
caption: Historic home of Christopher Boultenhouse is maintained as the Boultenhouse Heritage Centre to commemorate the region's shipbuilders
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