A little steam tug called the Hiram Perry Junior played a significant role in the history of Newfoundland mining. It was certainly the most significant ship in the history of Little Bay. I’ll attempt to tell you its story here. I’ve yet to find a picture of the Hiram Perry so the pictures included here are only of similarly designed ships to give you a sense of a craft that ventured the bays of Northern Newfoundland in the late 19th century.

Records of the Hiram Perry in Newfoundland I’ve found occur between 1876 and 1891. It is well documented over this period. Making the connection that it is the same Hiram Perry Jr. found on the mainland beforehand is held by only a single thread. It was registered there to a Mr. W. H. Blanchard. I knew him to be Baron Franz von Ellershausen’s lawyer. In consulting with Calvin Evans, a man with much more knowledge on the subject of historical ships, he questioned the likelihood that the ship could have been operating in Newfoundland without a registry here. I’ll ask you to keep that criticism in mind as I do my best to separate what we can know about the Hiram Perry from what I think occurred.

Under the registry number of 59231 the vessel was described as a smaller sized wooden screw steam tug weighing in between 39 and 40 tons. The dimensions of the ship were 80 feet length, 17 feet breadth, with a hold depth of 7 feet. It had a gross tonnage of about 80. The Newfoundland Consolidated Mining Company published an overview of its operations in 1881 and from it we can add a few more details. It describes but fails to name what it calls the Company’s powerful little steamer. Of note here is its mention that the ship had a steam launch. This presents us with a smaller steam powered boat attached to the larger craft.

If we start with the ship’s registry back in New Brunswick we can trace the Hiram Perry back to its start. Following the paper trail back from New Brunswick we find that the Hiram Perry was built in Oswego, New York in 1857. It shared its name with the treasurer of Oswego county at that time so I’d guess that treasurer Hiram Perry Jr. was its namesake. It was constructed under a business partnership with connections to both the United States and Canada. It was registered as American until 1869 when it arrived at a new home on the Bay of Fundy. The journey from Lake Ontario to the Bay of Fundy suggests a voyage upriver. The following period has it owned by a Mr. William James Pratt of New Brunswick. There the tug boat was assigned its task in circulation with a number of other tugs. They shared the responsibility of pulling newly constructed vessels out onto the open ocean. It was in this capacity that the Hiram Perry became part of a legal dispute as documented in the 1875 case of Pratt vs Tapley. The owner of a new craft sought towing services but had skipped over the Hiram Perry in the rotation in preference for another more powerful ship called the Hercules. The reason given was that Hiram Perry undertaking the task was too risky. I suspect this contributed to a change of ownership.

The Hiram Perry was next registered to W. H. Blanchard. I recognized the name from a clipping in an old scrapbook that had been sent to me. Blanchard was a barrister based in Windsor, Nova Scotia who worked as a solicitor for Little Bay’s founding father; the Baron Franz von Ellershausen. It is my suspicion that the ship can be understood from this point as belonging to the Baron in all but name. The Hiram Perry would remain officially under the ownership of Blanchard for the duration of its paper trail as far as I can follow it. This kept its port of registry back in New Brunswick. However, subsequent accounts of a tug steamer in Newfoundland with the same name refer to it as either the Baron’s or the property of his mining company. As I’ve pointed out elsewhere this sort of hidden ownership was not uncommon for the Baron’s property. It should be noted that barrister Blanchard would later inherit Ellershausen’s Nova Scotian estate after his death in Germany in 1903. I haven’t looked deeply into the Nova Scotia property records so I don’t know if this happened because the Baron intentionally left the lawyer his property or not.

At the same time that the Baron’s lawyer became the Hiram Perry’s owner the Baron was setting up the infrastructure for Northern Newfoundland’s mining boom. My earliest record of the Hiram Perry in Newfoundland places it at Betts Cove in the summer of 1876. However, I suspect it arrived the previous year in 1875 based on the run-time of its first Newfoundland captain. So the ship gets in legal trouble, it gets bought by the Baron’s lawyer, and at the same time the Baron was putting the Betts Cove operation together. It might be circumstantial but another steam tug with the same name showing up at the same time connected to the same men is also a stretch.

The Baron appointed a man named Alfred Dean of Seldom-Come-By as the Captain of the Hiram Perry. I know Captain Dean held the position for seven years before relinquishing it. Captain Dean was presented with a gold watch when he stepped down. The Company had good reason to praise his run as Hiram Perry’s captain. We can know this because Alfred Dean’s character was called into question after a salvage incident in 1884. A public defamation of the man lead others to publish a defence so his praise ended up appearing in print. An Evening Telegram article that February described Dean as “an honourable, industrious man, and an ingenious mechanic” due to a particular accomplishment of his while the Hiram Perry was under his command. He gave the ship one heck of an upgrade. The Mining Company’s publication dates this overhaul to 1880. However, I think we can do better as the ship, carrying mine manager Guzman, was forced to dock at Twillingate due to a defective boiler that September. This event was significant enough to be mentioned sixty years later in a 1940 entry of the Twillingate Sun.

As such, it was likely in the fall of 1880 that Captain Dean oversaw a team of the mining company’s machinists when they docked the vessel and set to rebuilding it. This was a massive undertaking and involved replacing much of the vessel both inside and out. What was considered by then a worthless piece of junk was not just repaired. It was drastically improved upon. They removed, updated, and reinstalled its machinery. They renovated both its interior and exterior components. They even rebuilt its hull. The Company’s document describes how this enlarged the size of the ship and the Telegram describes a ship of increased value. This work is credited with the subsequent years of service provided to the mining company by the Hiram Perry in its “constant steaming between that Company’s various mining settlements.”

The main port for the ship switched from Betts Cove to Little Bay around 1883. I deduce that the Hiram Perry was docked primarily at Betts Cove from 1875 until 1882 when its second captain, Captain Haggett, can be placed in Betts Cove by Twillingate’s Elector’s List. Excerpts from Haggett’s journal put him in Little Bay by 1884. Captain Haggett lived at the Loading Wharf where the Hiram Perry would likely dock for the winter. When ice prevented the Hiram Perry from travel related assignments those remained the duty of its crew as evidenced by an account from Captain Haggett in which he was sent to Twillingate for machine components. This trip, which he took by dogsled, recounts a hilarious event in which dogs trained to return to Little Bay got loose in the night and went home leaving the men stranded.

In considering the operations of the Hiram Perry the Company Town’s multi-pronged approach to community building is demonstrated. The Company’s publication described the function of the Hiram Perry as “communication between the different ports [and] towing sailing-vessels.” However, under closer scrutiny the assignments of the Hiram Perry are found to be more varied. Its tasks reflected the larger social responsibilities undertaken by the Company Town dynamic writ large. The Hiram Perry can be found, as expected, tugging other vessels around the bays. It towed the Morna in 1881 and the Mary Agnes in 1883 as examples. However, it was also involved in the delivery of priority-deemed goods and services such as in November of 1885 when it was dispatched to Twillingate with Dr. Jospeh in order to fetch some much-needed smallpox vaccine for Little Bay. Its assignments provided service to other industries as well as it carried provisions to Gull Island in March of 1881 to aid an in-need sealing industry located there.

The Hiram Perry undertook many tasks less obviously beneficial to mining operations alone. For example, it was sometimes used to carry human remains. The ship carried the body of a miner named Spriggs to Little Bay from Betts Cove in 1884. It returned the body of Mrs. Berteau home to Twillingate in 1886. The ship was also occasionally recruited for police duties such as two incidents recorded from the summer of 1886. One account concerns a prisoner named Richard Drover who was retrieved from Round Harbour and in the other Sergeant Wells and Magistrate Blandford took passage to Rabbit’s Arm to investigate a suspicious fire.

In practice the primary function of the Hiram Perry seemed to have been the transportation of the mine’s management and their more celebrated acquaintances. Many of these trips, as expected, involved the interests of mining operations. These would involve either carrying miners for the purposes of supplying labour to new or expanding mines or carrying surveyors to locations where ore deposits were suspected. The Baron also used the ship to give tours of his various mining interests to visitors such is recounted by James Howley in August of 1879. However, plenty of these journeys were undertaken for leisure such as a school picnic to Wild Bight in 1886 and a pleasure cruise to visit Mr. Curtis on Mill Island in 1887. The Mill Island trip involved dancing on the deck with live music provided. In 1883 the ship carried the Bishop of Harbour Grace along with Little Bay’s Father O’Flynn to visit native settlements around Hall’s Bay. This was a decidedly Catholic enterprise being supported by the mine but the mine’s management were not Catholics. This reinforces an ongoing observation of mine on Little Bay’s cosmopolitan attitude toward its church’s denominations. This attitude was not reflected in the area of politics where the mine had no problem supporting one party over another. Of note is the use of the vessel in obvious support of particular political interest. The Hiram Perry was at the disposal of the Whiteway candidates throughout the year of 1889 for example.

The little steamship is well documented in Newfoundland until 1891. My last account of the vessel is from August that year and involved a trip to Twillingate taken by Little Bay’s Masons. The ship was decorated with flags and banners for the occasion and carried the members of Little Bay’s Notre Dame Lodge to visit their Twillingate brethren for a grand evening of dining and dancing. I can find no reference to the ship’s activities at all after this well documented event. According to the ship’s registry it did not retire from use until 1898 when Mr. Blanchard closes its account back in New Brunswick. It was last sold to someone in Newfoundland. This sale further supports my belief that all references I’ve explored herein are to a single shipped named the Hiram Perry. The existence of two different steamers both named for the same New York treasurer both ending up in Newfoundland at the same time seems quite unlikely. 

I haven’t dug too deeply into the families of the Hiram Perry’s captains yet but I can tell you a few tidbits. By 1893, its last known captain, Captain Robert Haggett could be found living at Pilley’s Island. McAlpine’s lists him as a fisherman there the following year. I’d guess by his change in job title that the Hiram Perry was no longer in service to Newfoundland’s mining interests. I believe his clan ended up in Grand Falls and gave rise to the Haggets there. I reach this conclusion based on recurring first names. If you’re working on that family there’s a fun account of him buying booze off a notorious scoundrel named Tom Avery in the 1945 Western Star. His 1885 journal excerpts are in the Twillingate Sun but give the name as Robert Hackett. Context suggests it’s the same man, however.

As for Captain Alfred Dean he lived in Little Bay for awhile before returning to Seldom-Come-By. He had his own schooner there for a time. He gets tangled up in some bad publicity after an incident involving the recovery of a ship at sea which is covered in the Evening Telegram. Don’t worry, he managed to clear his name. I’d guess there’s a connection to the Deans in Springdale but I haven’t looked into this yet.

This piece took a lot of digging but I think I’ve put a nice account together of the Hiram Perry and its activities. I will remind you, however, that in speaking with Calvin Evans he questioned the likelihood that the craft could have been operating in Newfoundland without being registered here. I think I’ve got the same ship tracked from New York to Northern Newfoundland but across the channel its a thin connection. He suggested a few other places to check for the ship. The Maritime History Archives at MUN could have its crew manifest and Ship Registers should have a record of it. Those could require another trip to St. John’s. If you’re there already and wish to help or prove me wrong have at it. I stand to be corrected. I’ve learned over the years at this not to be over confident. I’ve made mistakes before and no doubt will again.

The last I’ve found on our 40 tonne wooden screw steamer named after a treasurer in New York is found with the closing of its registry on February 3rd, 1898. It still assigned its port of registry to Saint John, New Brunswick. The final remark recorded in reference to the Hiram Perry Jr. was written on that document. It reads simply – “sold to parties in Newfoundland.” Where in Newfoundland it went remains a mystery.

Somewhere on our island it rests.

Thanks for reading.

Timeline of sources:

• 1857 – Constructed in Oswego, New York
• 1866 – Owned by partnership in Oswego (Pott)
• 1869 – Registered in America
• 1870 – Registered by William James Pratt in New Brunswick
• 1871 – Registered in Saint John, New Brunswick by W.J. Pratt
• 1874 – Registered in Windsor, Nova Scotia
• 1875 – Part of a group of tugs at Saint John, NB (Reports of Cases)
• 1876, Aug – Arrived in Harbour Grace from Betts Cove (HGS)
• 1879, Aug – Ellershausen took Murry and Howley on a tour of his interests (Geology survey)
• 1879, Aug – Arrived in St. John’s from Catalina (CH / ET)
• 1879, Sept – Took Ellershausen and company from Betts Cove to Little Bay (CH)
• 1880, Aug – Arrived in Twillingate from St. John’s (TS, 1940)
• 1880, Sept – Docked at Twillingate due to defective boiler (TS, 1940)
• 1881 – Newfoundland Consolidated Mining Company
• 1881, Jan – Towed the Morna from Little Bay to Betts Cove (ET, Feb)
• 1881, March – Brought provisions to Gull Island for the sealing industry (TS)
• 1881, July – At Green Island sawmill during fire (TS)
• 1882, July – Arrived at Betts Cove from Ming’s Bight (Journal of Legislative Council)
• 1882, Sept – Arrived in Twillingate from Little Bay (TS)
• 1882, Oct – Carried J.R. Stewart to Exploits (Howley)
• 1883, July – Carried the Bishop of Harbour Grace to Mill Island (EM / TNA)
• 1883, Aug – Towed the Mary Agnes to Little Bay (Wells)
• 1883, Dec – Carried Masons from Betts Cove to Little Bay (ET)
• 1884, Jan – Left Little Bay for Betts Cove (Wells)
• 1884, Sept – Carried the remains of Mr. Spriggs to Little Bay (TS)
• 1885, March – Hackett dog sled (TS)
• 1885, Nov – Sent to Twillingate for smallpox vaccine (Wells)
• 1885, Dec – Arrived at Twillingate with Dr. Joseph (TS)
• 1886, June – Brought Mr. Drover from Round Harbour to Little Bay (ET)
• 1886, July – Carried Blandford and Wells to Rabbit’s Arm to investigate fire (Wells)
• 1886, Aug – Went to Wild Bight for a picnic (Wells)
• 1886, Dec – Carried the remains of Mrs. Berteau to Twillingate (TS)
• 1887, June – Took sixteen miners to Baie Verte (DC)
• 1887, Aug – Mine management to a pleasure cruise and visited Mr. Curtis (TS)
• 1888, Aug – Arrived with Mr. Cunningham from Nippers Harbour (Lind)
• 1889, Aug – Toured party of candidates (ET)
• 1889, Nov – Toured party of candidates (TS)
• 1891, Feb – Called out for not delivering the mail (TS)
• 1891, Aug – Carried Masons from Little Bay to Twillingate (ET)
• 1898 – Registry closed