Kingston's Hanley Spur: Shipping Steel for Ships to the Shipyards, 1918-1920

Wednesday 1 June 2022

Shipping Steel for Ships to the Shipyards, 1918-1920

The vast majority of paper records (and for legal reasons certainly the essential ones) were taken from Kingston to head office in Collingwood, ON at the time of the closure of the Canadian Steamship Engineering Co.'s Kingston Shipyards. Some remained, apparently left high up in a ancient storage shed loft and discovered. An archivist named Wilson spent several days in 1968 checking out several tons of poorly-preserved records. Though perhaps mundane and workaday in nature, some of those records now comprise the five-box Kingston Shipyards Collection at the Queen's University Archives.

I can't imagine several tons. Having requested all five boxes, I felt badly that I could only make it part of the way through one, during each of two four-hour visits there! After viewing the photos of the first major ships built there, I was very interested to view some of the background correspondence. Specifically, steel shipments for use in building of the vessels. More specifically, car numbers containing the shipments! Being just over one hundred years old, they're a little early for my main era of interest, but to me they're engrossing for many reasons: their detail, the care taken forming the correspondence, and the variety of information that came in just a few small boxes from that high-up loft over fifty years ago!

Naturally, as in all government transactions, a paper trail was kept. The top letter records a shipment of steel plates from the Brier Hill Steel Co. of Youngstown, OH dated March 15, 1919. An example of the constant exchange of letters with notifications of cars arriving, weights and lading, and documentation for billing purposes. At the end of World War I, there had been difficulty in sourcing enough rolling stock to deliver much-needed products like steel.

I believe the ships the steel was used in are: CGS-148, CGS-164 likely the Canadian Beaver, CGS-179/Ship 16 the Canadian Coaster.

A sample invoice, this one from the Lackawanna Steel Co. in Buffalo, NY dated October 21, 1918. Routing is South Buffalo RR to Wabash RR to Canadian Pacific:

The steel plates were a variety of sizes, such as 300 x 72 x 3/4 inches or 240 x 73 by 5/16 inches. This car is found at the top of an August, 1919 list of carloads received (below) for CGS-148.

A January 3, 1919 letter notifying the shipyard of 300 tons of steel set to arrive for CGS-164, likely the Canadian Beaver, including keel plates, frames and floor plates:

A sample letter for a steel shipment, dated March 7, 1919:

A February 13, 1919 letter:

A few examples of railway paperwork are included, such as this Bill of Lading from La Belle Iron Works, dated January 1, 1919. Note the shipping route from Steubenville, OH to Kingston: Wabash RR. to Canadian Pacific Rly.

An April 13, 1920 letter describes 576 tons of steel plate to be sent from Dominion Steel & Coal Corporation (DOSCO) from Sydney, NS to Kingston. (Some of the steel shipped was not the correct size i.e. 92 inches instead of 192 inches in length!)

A March 17 and 19, 1919 accounting of cars received for CGS-164 between the Department of Marine and the shipyard from the Brier Hill Steel Co. The latter notes a discrepancy of four cars which have not arrived yet.

From all the documents, here's a list of the steel shipments by date, car number, lading, weight and originating steel mill/shipper. Note that some of the cars were likely travelling together, sometimes referred to as 'twins'. Perhaps one car was an idler car? A wide range of railway initials is evident (see bottom)