16 Closing the Yard

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CLOSING THE YARD

illness soon returned to kingston in the form of cholerA. A worldwide pandemic of the disease reached Canada in 1832. It started along the Ganges River Delta in India, spread over travel routes, came to England in 1831, and then arrived in Canada. Cholera is a disease caused by a bacterium that affects the small intestine. It inflames the tissues and leads to massive losses of fluids through diarrhea and vomiting. Severe muscle pain is common. Cholera can result in a quick death, sometimes in hours. It is not generally circulated by personal contact but by contaminated food or water. Treatment includes restoring the fluids that are lost. Today, cholera is effectively treated with antibiotics.

But in 1832 it was thought that, like other diseases, cholera was caused by polluted air, or miasma, found around swamps or rotting, stagnant pools. Physicians thought it could be prevented if one avoided drinking “new-made malt liquor” or cold fluid when overheated. They also advised shunning any sudden change from hot to cold. A typical treatment for cholera started with administering 30 drops of laudanum and having the patient drink thick water gruel, barley water, or fluids with more laudanum.1 Other bizarre or harmful treatments were advocated by some physicians. Isolation, or quarantine, was known to prevent spread of the disease.

News reached Kingston on June 9, 1832, that cholera was in Montreal. A board of health was created in Kingston, and a cholera hospital was designated. Arrangements were made for isolation quarters for patients, as well as

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for means to transport those who were ill to the cholera hospital. Near the shore, close to the market, a flagpole was raised to hoist flags to warn arriving ships of the disease. A yellow flag was hoisted to indicate contagion. Upon seeing the flag, vessels were to anchor at least 100 yards off Mississauga Point and stand by for inspection. On June 20, the first two Kingston cases were identified and the first fatality reported.2

Commodore Barrie monitored the developments from the relative isolation of Point Frederick. Although separated by water from Kingston, the Penny Bridge provided a route for transmission. People in boats and on wharves and docks facilitated the spread of the disease. Barrie had already identified an “obnoxious effluvia” that arose from the mast pond and was evident around the barracks and shanties on the hill. The cause could have been stagnant water, or the years of open toilets draining human waste into Navy Bay. Decaying wood from old timber booms, unused from the war, were evidently present around Navy Bay, and when they became loose, separated and rotted near the shores.3 The stored masts and deteriorating walkways and water fences may have also contributed. Barrie ordered that the timbers in the mast pond be pulled out, towed from the bay, and cast adrift.4

On June 19, Barrie directed that no person in the yard admit an immigrant and that all communication with immigrants be avoided. Surgeon George Colls was instructed to inspect all the stone cottages and remaining shanties. He found some in a “dirty state.” Barrie ordered the quarters completely cleaned and whitewashed and all yard refuse removed. Back sheds were to be cleaned and whitewashed, with quicklime thrown into the privies. Personal cleanliness was insisted upon. Barrie sent HMS Cockburn to stand patrol in Kingston Harbour and to aid the civil administration by enforcing the quarantine order.5

In isolating Point Frederick from Kingston, Barrie succeeded in protecting his staff and their families from cholera. By September, there were no cases at the dockyard while by one account the death toll in Kingston reached 400, a 10th of the city’s population. The dead included Robert Drummond, who had purchased the St. Lawrence.6

The army took similar measures to those of Barrie by moving soldiers and families into pitched tents on the high ground of Point Henry and isolating the camp. At first, this might not have included men and women at Fort Frederick, where three men and a woman contracted the disease and died, despite the efforts of the surgeon.7

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It was known that cholera could spread from those affected, so bodies were buried quickly. There were many burials in Kingston and possibly others on the military reserve, likely where the Fort Frederick dead were buried. This burial ground, the second on Point Frederick, was south of the northern boundary. Fig. 16.1 details a map from 1849, showing the location of the burial ground just south of James Street in Barriefield. This ground was later used by the army for military exercises, starting in the 1840s. Troops were warned to avoid the burial ground. Today, it is a part of the RMC north campus. With the cholera epidemic abating late in the summer and cold weather approaching, the Cockburn returned to the yard, and a sense of normalcy resumed.

In the spring of 1833, Barrie made his last tour of inspection of the Upper Lakes. The route took him through Lake Simcoe to the head of Kempenfelt Bay, and the start of a nine-mile portage leading to Lake Huron. The landing place at the head of Kempenfelt Bay is today the town of Barrie. Commodore Barrie may have been present at the landing on May 15, 1833, when the

Fig. 16.1: This map

shows a cemetery that includes burials from the 1832 cholera epidemic (red arrow). It is unknown how many graves are present.

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townsite was registered by William Hawkins as the town of Barrie.8 The focus of the residents on Commodore Barrie and the Royal Navy did not end with his name. Many of the streets were named after Royal Navy officers, some of whom had distinguished themselves on Lake Ontario during the War of 1812, including Captains William Mulcaster and Edward Collier. It has been suggested that Commodore Barrie himself may have put forward the names, or more likely, his secretary, John Marks. Unfortunately for Marks, the street named “Marks Street,” along the shoreline, was later renamed Simcoe Street.9

Meanwhile, in England, the Point Frederick dockyard received more attention. Although its future was continually in doubt, its fate was sealed a year later at an Admiralty meeting. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir James Graham, asked the question: “Would it not be wise to follow the example of the Americans and at once withdraw our Commissioner and the whole Naval Establishment?”10 Expressed so simply, the answer seemed obvious. Action quickly followed.

In March 1834, Commodore Barrie received his orders to reduce the naval dockyard establishment to the lowest possible figure. He was to strike his broad pennant and decommission HMS Cockburn by July 1. Barrie was given discretion to sell what he could but was advised to keep such stores as he thought could be usefully kept in the naval buildings while preventing them from decay.

Young Juno, who had spent much of her life on Point Frederick, could not believe it when she heard the news.11 The Barrie family had been a presence on Point Frederick for 15 years and had roots in Kingston. Juno recalled many years later that Barrie pushed back against the order but knew that nothing could be done. The family began to pack up all they wished to have in England, with no expectation of a return. With only weeks to prepare, they would leave in May. Barrie would see them off but remain a little longer to finalize the shutdown of the yard.

On May 20, 1834, John Marks announced a public auction that was perhaps the largest sale of surplus naval stores in Upper Canada. Foremost on the list was HMS Bull Frog, advertised as nearly new and completely rigged. There was a vast quantity of wood — pine, elm, and oak — presumably stored in the yard and ready for use. Anchors, metal blocks, tackle, and sails were available. There were glass panes, tools, stoves, iron casks, rope, pipe, spikes, paint, pump gear, boats, and much more.12

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Barrie discharged all of the civilian staff, some of whom had been in the yard for many years. He arranged orders for each member of the 76-man crew of HMS Cockburn, who were soon on their way to other naval yards. A small maintenance staff was kept at work for a few weeks, doing what they could with the limited time. But they, too, were let go by June 30. The hospital was empty and locked, and the surgeon’s dwelling vacant with George Colls on half pay. He had obtained his doctor’s provincial licence and hoped to establish a school of medicine in Kingston.13 The Cockburn remained in the yard and was placed in ordinary.14 The unsold Bull Frog, the yard boat, also stayed in the yard.

In May, Barrie sold his Arabian horse as a breeder for £500. After the departure of his family, he auctioned off much of their furniture on June 25 on Point Frederick. Barrie would leave their dog with Commander Henry Bayfield at Quebec. His son, William, now 17, was with Bayfield but soon on his way to the Halifax station and his future in the Royal Navy.

Fig. 16.2 is a map of Point Frederick, much as Barrie would leave it. There are four vessels shown off the Navy Bay sandspit, coinciding with those in the ink drawing in Fig. 15.3. Fencing around the hospital and dwelling delineates pastures and paddocks, as well as gardens along the front and back roads.

Barrie left the yard neat and secure. While he had realized his aim of building a fence along the north border to delineate the Admiralty property, the responsibility for the yard eventually passed to the Ordnance Department, the stone wall and dockyard gate still securing the inner enclosure containing the large limestone storehouse and the vast collection of naval stores within. All else was neatly parcelled within the buildings that remained. Dwellings, barracks, and canteen messes were now all empty. The fires were out in the stone blacksmith shop, the doors locked. Cannons, shot, and anchors were tidily stacked as if on parade. There were no working vessels.

The last day of Commodore Barrie’s presence on Point Frederick came on July 10, 1834. After a last inspection, probably with John Marks, and a final look through the home of his young family, Barrie stepped from his wharf onto the deck of the steamer St. George. There were no gun salutes, bands, or special thanks from the city. His sole travelling companion was Marks, who accompanied him to Montreal. Marks was still tying up loose ends, generating letters for Barrie, and acting as a friend.15 After escorting the commodore to Montreal, Marks began the long trip back up the St. Lawrence River to Kingston. He was the only employee left.

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Fig. 16.2: Detail

of Plan of the Naval Yard, circa 1830s.

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The editor of the Spectator had this to say shortly after his departure: “The Navy Point … has the appearance of something like a deserted town. It presents a strange contrast to the life and vitality it exhibited a few years ago. Nearly all the houses are unoccupied, the Yard closed, and the guard withdrawn…. Nothing is more missed than the regularness of the Dockyard bell; It was as good as a town clock to the inhabitants….”16

Marks’s job was now to oversee the empty yard, which involved continuing to sell down naval assets while preserving the buildings until the future of the site was determined. As storekeeper, Marks managed the small budget available to him. Given the great distance from England and the Navy Board, he must have had autonomy in hiring and arranging contracts. But there was little he could do to keep the remaining buildings from falling into ruin.

The senior civil officers had already drifted toward other pursuits, some in Barriefield. Former storekeeper Edward Laws built a stone house in the village

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in 1820. Marks was living in Barriefield on the farm he bought in 1824 after the deaths of his only children the year before, renovating the existing log house. Marks would have commuted to Point Frederick by walking or riding along Main Street and down the hill, a trip he made hundreds of times. Employing labourers on his farm, Marks often rented accommodation to them, perhaps in the remaining shanties on Point Frederick.17

Marks’s first challenge was the return of cholera. The second epidemic reached Kingston on July 26, 1834. Now a leading citizen, Marks was appointed to the new Pittsburgh County Health Board, but there was little he could offer other than good counsel. The yard was empty, the Cockburn and the Bull Frog mothballed. There were no crews to enforce the quarantine. The army garrison once more moved its families into the tents on Fort Henry and waited for the threat to abate.18

In 1835, Patrick Shirreff, evidently a passivist, visited the yard and noted that the “rotting vessels excited more pleasing ideas than the rising fort.”19 He was referring to a new Fort Henry rising across the bay.

Marks spent much of 1835 preparing for two more public auctions and then a third held at the yard in the fall of 1836. Planning and organizing the sales was undoubtedly a full-time job, although he also had to manage his farm. John Langton, who later was the first auditor general of the Dominion of Canada, ventured down from his home on Sturgeon Lake to attend one of the auctions with a friend. Each of them bought a small boat, in Langton’s case a four-oared man-of-war gig,20 which he took for use at his farmstead. The sum generated by that auction was £20,000 and must have included an enormous quantity of stores.

The auction of June 27, 1836, was particularly notable. Besides the usual articles, this sale included “one frigate in frame, 56 guns; one ship in frame, 22 guns; one brig in frame, 14 guns; and one schooner in frame, of four guns.” The Cockburn schooner and Bull Frog were offered for sale once again. They were also offering “10 gunboats in good condition, as far as they are finished.” In addition, “one old schooner and four old ships of war lying aground in the mud in the harbour” were advertised. There were 12 boats “new, and in use,” and six fire engines.21 The Bull Frog was finally sold but would return when it was again needed by the navy. There is no indication that John Marks arranged to move the four larger vessels, which provides evidence that they remained at the Navy Bay sandspit for a few more years. These were the last

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of the vessels that had seen action in the War of 1812. HMS Cockburn was at last sold, as well, in 1837 for only £100.22 Although the heavy ordnance, shot, and anchors remained, the yard was mostly stripped of useful items.

In 1837, with the Ordnance Department preparing to assume control of the property, the Royal Engineers conducted a detailed inventory of the peninsula, identifying and describing 56 buildings. The dimensions of most buildings and the state of repair were described. The report noted that by 1837 Mr. Prior, who was an ordnance clerk, inhabited the surgeon’s house and was paying a rent of £10 per year, presumably to John Marks. The building was in poor repair. Lieutenant Mason of the 24th Regiment was the only occupant of one of the old barracks on the hill. Innis Ramsay, who was an “ordnance labourer,” lived in a long, narrow log structure east of the Admiralty House.23 Mrs. Sangster, the widow of James who had died in 1824 and mother of Charles, the Canadian poet, resided in a shanty near the head of Navy Bay. Mrs. Harrison, also a widow of a seaman, occupied a small shanty on the hill. There were still six shanties left on the hill.24

The Royal Engineers noted at least three privies built into the sea wall and presumably still in use until the yard was closed. The Admiralty House was not inhabited, and the commodore’s stables, washhouse, and greenhouse were very much out of repair. The naval hospital and cookhouse also needed maintenance. The naval cottages, now almost 15 years old, were vacant but worthy of restoring.

Inside the dockyard gate were four small buildings on the left. The first was the porter’s lodge and surgery, an indication that George Colls kept an office there. This wooden frame building was incorrectly once thought to be today’s RMC guardhouse. Three other log buildings had been used during and after the War of 1812 as dwellings and a guardhouse. Elsewhere in the yard, some structures, such as a boathouse and rigging house, were in ruins, probably unrepaired from storm damage. Yeo’s old quarters building was empty but in adequate shape. The mould and sail loft had wood rot. Both wharves were in poor condition.

The old officers’ quarters, a relic from the Provincial Marine, was in a bad way and described as part of an old house and storekeeper’s office. Another early building, the naval storekeeper’s “new” office, pronounced in good repair, had formerly been the Provincial Marine guardhouse. A hauling-up slip at the base of the mast pond was in bad shape, perhaps from the 1833 hurricane.

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With the Ordnance Department becoming responsible for the yard, John Marks decided to return to civilian life and politics. He ran as a Conservative in the 1836 election and was elected to represent Frontenac in the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada. Marks also became a justice of the peace for the Midland District while still nominally holding the position of naval storekeeper.25

But everything changed on December 7, 1837, when William Lyon Mackenzie led an insurgent mob down Yonge Street toward Toronto and initiated the Upper Canada Rebellion.

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