Shipbuilding History

Garden Island ON

A truly remarkable shipyard operated in the 19th century on Garden Island, in the St. Lawrence River, between Wolfe Island and Kingston ON. Known as the Calvin Shipyard, it was established by and for the Calvin Company, which was a major player in the Canadian timber industry. The driving forces behind this enterprise were its owner, Dileno Dexter Calvin, and the man who ran the yard for most of its existence, Henry Roney. Calvin leased 15 of the island's 65 acres in 1836, purchased this property in 1848, then bought the rest of the island in 1852. The Calvin Company shipped in logs and shipped out finished timber, becoming, in addition, merchants, wharfingers, freight carriers, salvagers, wreckers and shipbuilders. Calvin died in 1884 and under his son's management the business declined, being gone by 1914. At its peak, 750 people lived on Garden Island: today the number is a single digit - although many of the cottages built by D. D. Calvin for his employees survive as summer rentals - and the ferry service was cut off in 1976. Calvin's shipyard is believed to have built at least 60 ships - he level-loaded the yard by committing to a construction rate of one ship a year - but the records are sparse.