Silk Sails by Calvin Evans Page B

married women. Were it not for a scrapbook kept by Quebec registrars from 1850 to 1958, and which I found by happenstance in Ottawa, we might never have had a public pronouncement on the issue. It is clearly stated in a letter from the Department of Marine and Fisheries, dated December 30, 1949: “Where a woman’s name appearsas owner or mortgagee, she should be described as Spinster, Married Woman, or Widow, as the case may be.” This directive was, of course, a complete reversal of a practice which had evolved over many years, and I expect that the bureaucrat who penned these words was unaware of what registrars in the provinces had been doing. Did his words, on the other hand, represent an attempt to reverse the fortunes of women in that society, or were they purely personal?
    There is a section in the Quebec scrapbook entitled “Description of ownership title of a woman” and a note to the effect that regarding mortgages, the “marriage contract may be used instead of Last Will & Testament in case of death.” There is a further note on “Married Women, Legal restrictions as to their right to hold or transfer ship property not the business of the Registrar.” There is a letter from the Deputy Minister of Marine in Ottawa dated September 15, 1880, indicating that if Madame Beaupre wishes to be the mortgagee for her husband’s, Maxime Beaupre’s ship, that is really of no concern to the registrar’s office; if she wishes to risk her money that is her prerogative. A further section of the scrapbook is indexed as “Registered owner may sell to his wife,” suggesting only that the wife would first have to file a Declaration of Ownership and a Declaration of Assets. These documents were to be sworn before a notary public. A further index entry for 1949 is entitled “Title of Married Woman” and refers to a section where a woman had been registered as a “Mariner” but this should now be changed to “Spinster”; another woman had been designated as a “Manager” but this should now be changed to “Ship’s Husband.” I wonder if the registrar saw the irony in the latter dictate. There is an added communication signed by Elizabeth Descheneaux’s attorney indicating that she had originally been called a married woman and this has now been changed to spinster.
    There is some evidence that existing records were “corrected” by a registrar who served after the time of the original registration. There is an instance where “Stenographer” was marked over and “Spinster” was written in by a later hand. There is a case where “Hotel Proprietor” was crossed out and “Married Woman” was written in.And yet another case where “Housewife” was crossed out and “Married Woman” was written in. But only about half a dozen such instances were found in the ship registers of all five provinces.
    So what are the facts related to designated occupation? The earliest women shipowners, dating from the early 1800s, were widows, but it was not long before single women made an appearance, and then married women. In Newfoundland the first widow to register a ship was Ann McCarthy of Crocker’s Cove, Conception Bay. She registered the ship
Susan
at St. John’s in 1822 as sole owner. The ship had been built at Moreton’s Harbour by Richard Horwood. Modifications must have been made to the ship subsequently since it was re-registered in 1825 when it was noted that the ship was engaged in the Labrador fishery, and Joseph Taylor was the master or captain. Twenty years later, in 1842, Mary Foley Morris, a single woman of St. John’s, registered three ships: the
John and Mary
, the
Nancy
, and the
Relief
. She must have been a courageous woman since she took mortgages on all three ships. The first married woman shipowner in Newfoundland was Caroline Winsor of Aquaforte; she held 13