Glory days of ship building in Port Robinson
When we think of shipbuilding in Niagara, we think first of the accomplishments of Louis Shickluna, whose shipyard was near the centre of St. Catharines, just north of where the Burgoyne Bridge is today.
But Shickluna was by no means the only important shipbuilder in Niagara. On the east side of St. Catharines, near the intersection of today’s Westchester Crescent and Oakdale Avenue, Melancthon Simpson had his successful shipyard. Out in Port Dalhousie, there were shipyards belonging to the Muir brothers and to Robert Abbey and two of his sons.
But there was also considerable shipbuilding elsewhere along the canal. In the late 1840s John P. Abbey and James E. Abbey, two other sons of Robert Abbey, decided to seek their fortunes further south on the canal, in the thriving community of Port Robinson. By 1850 they had established their own shipyard there, benefiting no doubt from the expertise they had gained from helping their father run his yard in Port Dalhousie.
The Abbey shipyard was constructed adjacent to the remains of two of the old wooden locks left over from the time when the first Welland Canal had connected there with the Welland River/ Chippawa Creek.
Around those locks the Abbeys established their dry dock, offices, carpentry shops and storage buildings. During the next 25 years there, they produced a sizeable number of Great Lakes vessels — wooden sailing ships, side-wheel and propeller steamers, barges and scows.
One of the last of their ships, and also one of the largest, is shown in the accompanying old photo — City of St. Catharines, built for three investors from this city. The ship was launched on April 29, 1874. After six years of successful Great Lakes operations, the ship sank in Lake Huron following a collision with another vessel in July 1880. In 1882-83 it was raised, refitted, renamed Otego and continued to serve its new owners until it burned while anchored at Green Bay, Wisc., in 1895.
By the time the Abbey shipyard produced City of St. Catharines, Port Robinson was in decline. In 1876, surviving owner James Abbey (his brother John died in 1863) announced he planned to close the shipyard and move to a more promising location in Toronto.
Where did all of this shipbuilding by the Abbeys take place in Port Robinson? Readers familiar with the village will remember — a short distance down River Street from the corner bar and the fire hall — the half-buried remains of a stone lock, part of the channel that once connected the second canal with the Welland River.
As you look down, that old lock there is to the left: a broad, green meadow stretching toward Canby Street. It was there, on the disused channel of the first canal, that the Abbey brothers built their shipyard. Once that channel was filled in sometime during the 1920s, it became part of the grassy open space we see today. With thanks to Tom Russell, Port Robinson.