Page Thirteen

It is interesting to speculate on the extent to which the building of large vessels was carried on at Lance Cove.  The first settlers certainly did not lack the resources, either in terms of materials or talent, and there is too much tradition and sound evidence to doubt that they did indeed engage in this occupation, even if only for a short period of time.

That the Pittses built their own vessels and sailed them to British America, is almost a matter of historical fact; evidence, most likely,  will eventually turn up to confirm this.  It is alleged that one of the factors which induced Benjamin Bowring to come to Newfoundland was a chance conversation with James Pitts who had called at his shop in Exeter to purchase three clocks for his sons, James, John and William.  Mr. Pitts was in Exeter on business in connection with the sale of codfish.

A very strong tradition in the Rees family states that the Rees brothers built their own vessel and made at least one trip to Ireland with a cargo of train oil.  When Mr. L. C. Morris visited Lance Cove in August, 1900, he recorded that Stephen, a grandson of the first Rees settler, pointed out to him the site of two old shipyards and told him that all together around sixty vessels of 100-120 tons burthen had been built there.¹⁶  Mr. H.F. Shortis, the well known Newfoundland journalist and historian who was born in Harbour Grace, 1855, stated: “Vessels built in Newfoundland could compete favourably with any of the English and Scotch built vessels.......they were all brigs, brigantines and barques”.   He gave the following interesting list of names of  “Square-riggers in the foreign trade built at Bell Isle by Kent”: Naomi, Arabella, Tarbet, Clutha, Wm. Donnelley, Maggie, Pet, Bonavista, Bell Sire, Harriet Ridley, and the Princess.¹⁷

Mrs. Ann Lewis, a granddaughter of John Pitts, died in 1950 at the age of 100 years.  It is known that she had in her possession a record of the ships built in Lance Cove by her great grandfather and his sons.  Mrs. Lewis loaned this document to a Mr. Parsons, an editor of the Evening Telegram, who proposed to use it as the basis of an article for his paper.  Unfortunately, Mr. Parsons never did write this article and the record was subsequently lost.

The only actual record I could find of ships built at Bell Island is contained in the 1805 returns of the governor to the British Colonial Office.  In the list of vessels built in Newfoundland in 1804, there are two which were built at “Belle Isle”. The Brothers, a 40 ton lugger, and the Betsy, a 58 ton schooner.¹⁸  The returns for 1811 state that in that year, 167 masts and spars were imported into Conception Bay from British America.  There can be little doubt that some of those were destined for the shipyards on Lance Cove beach.

16. Daily News. L.C. Morris. Sept. 8, 1900.

17. Evening Telegram. H.F. Shortis. Jan. 21. 1922

18. Memorial University. Microfilm #7, c.o. 194, Vol. 44, 1804-05