Sackville’s Shipbuilding Era Monument
SACKVILLE’S SHIPBUILDING ERA
1821 – 1898
Over 160 sailing ships were built in Sackville parish yards during the period 1821 to 1898.On 24 September 2006 a monument of local redsandstone with a plaque commemorating “Sackville’s Shipbuilding Era”, located in front of the Boultenhouse Heritage Centre, 29B Queens Road, Sackville was unveiled by Charlie Scobie and Bob Selkirk on behalf of the Tantramar Historic Sites committee. At the same time a nautical flagpole was inaugurated.

These were the results of a project jointly funded by the Tantramar Historic Sites committee (with funding assistance from the Town of Sackville) and the Tantramar Heritage Trust.
Detail of plaque, placed by Tantramar Historic Sites
and unveiled on 24 September 2006 
SACKVILLE’S SHIPBUILDING ERA
L’ÈRE DE LA CONSTRUCTION NAVALE À SACKVILLE
The Golden Age of Sail is deeply embedded in Sackville’s history. From this location, Christopher Boultenhouse could view his sprawling shipyard, established in the early 1840s and located on the banks of the then mighty Tantramar River. By the 1850s two other large yards, those of Charles Dixon and Henry Purdy, were also visible from here.

Shipping registers reveal that several shipbuilding families and a few individuals launched over 160 vessels from Sackville parish yards between 1821 and 1898. The Boultenhouse family accounted for nearly half of them. Sailing rigs were mostly schooners, brigantines and barques with a few brigs and a barquentine. Fifteen full-rigged ships were constructed, the largest being the 1468-ton SARAH DIXON launched from the Dixon yard in 1856. That same year Christopher Boultenhouse launched the 192-ton side paddle-wheel steamboat – the SS WESTMORLAND, Sackville’s only steamship.

Ships built in Sackville plied the waters of the world, bearing lumber, trade goods, and sometimes passengers ñ emigrants from Ireland and gold seekers to Australia.

TANTRAMAR HISTORIC SITES
2006
 L’Âge d’or de la navigation à voile fait partie intégrante de l’histoire de Sackville. De cet endroit, le constructeur naval Christopher Boultenhouse pouvait contempler son vaste chantier fondé au début des années 1840 sur la Tantramar, alors une puissante rivière. Dix ans plus tard, on pouvait voir d’ici deux autres chantiers, ceux de Charles Dixon et de Henry Purdy.D’après les registres maritimes, plus de 160 vaisseaux appareillèrent des chantiers de la paroisse de Sackville entre 1821 et 1898, lancés par un certain nombre de familles de constructeurs navals et par quelques particuliers. Près de la moitié de ces vaisseaux furent construits par la famille Boultenhouse. Parmi les bateaux à voiles, il y eut surtout des goélettes, des brigantins et des trois-mâts barques, auxquels s’ajoutèrent quelques bricks et une barquentine. Quinze grands voiliers furent construits ici; le plus grand d’entre eux, le SARAH DIXON, un navire de 1 468 tonnes, sortit du chantier Dixon en 1856. La même année, Christopher Boultenhouse lancait le SS WESTMORLAND, un bateau à vapeur de 192 tonnes muni de roues à aubes latérales. Ce fut le seul navire vapeur construit à Sackville.

Les vaisseaux construits à Sackville ont navigué sur toutes les eaux du monde, chargés de bois de construction, de marchandises, et parfois même de passagers, immigrés venus d’Irlande et chercheurs d’or qui síen allaient chercher fortune en Australie.
On shipbuilding in Sackville, see

Alward, Dale E., Down Sackville Ways: Shipbuilding in a Nineteenth Century New Brunswick Outport (Sackville, N.B.: Tantramar Heritage Trust, 2003).

Milner, W.C., History of Sackville New Brunswick (Sackville, N.B.: The Tribune Press, 1934), pp. 72-76.

Tower, K., “Local artist brings Sackville’s ‘Golden Age of Sail’ back to life,” Sackville Tribune-Post, 13 September 2006.

Smith, Al, “Sackville’s largest ship launched 150 years ago,” Sackville Tribune-Post, 20 September 2006.

Tantramar Heritage Trust | Historic Sites