19 Ordnance Department

19

ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT

when the royAl nAvy closed the dockyArd in 1853, the Ordnance Department took over. Technically, the property was still owned by the navy, but the Ordnance Department was responsible for it. The department “was charged with the manufacture, care, maintenance, and supply of the arms of the army and navy. The Department was also responsible for all military lands, buildings, and fortifications.”1

Acquiring the use of Point Frederick solved some lingering problems for the Ordnance Department. With the Stone Frigate no longer in use by the navy, the old storehouse offered badly needed storage space. The empty naval cottages and dwellings supplied accommodation to senior civil staff and military families as well as office space for army units. The ordnance storekeeper and the senior clerks responsible for finance and the function of the supply system originally had residences at Fort Henry but were looking for other arrangements.

The Admiralty House became available. The ordnance storekeeper moved in, taking charge of the small estate, which included outbuildings and gardens. The ordnance clerk took up residence in the surgeon’s house, which was substantially modified and had its own gardens (see Fig. 19.1). That property included stables, a cookhouse, and a field abutting the lot of the ordnance storekeeper. The rundown and mostly empty naval cottages were refurbished for use as offices and for the accommodation of clerks and military from the Ordnance Department, Royal Engineers, and Commissariat.2

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Fig. 19.1: This map of the Admiralty property dates from 1859. It shows the extensive gardens near the former Admiralty House, and the surgeon’s dwelling, which had been rebuilt.

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Fig. 19.2: This

detail of an 1853 map depicts the plan for allocation of the naval cottages after the departure of the navy. All 16 cottages were allocated as either accommodation or office space. Note the large lot allocations to the two senior ordnance officials.

Fig. 19.2 contains a map showing the functional changes. Starting from the north, the first three units of the naval cottages were taken up by the ordnance offices and office-keeper’s accommodation. Next in line, quarters were each assigned to the master armourer, the foreman of labourers, commissariat issuer, three battalion allocations, the foreman of works, and two more ordnance clerks. Three units were not appropriated. It is evident that some of the naval cottages were occupied by families with children, and there was again need for a school. With Barrie’s school gone, another was built in Barriefield for the military and village children.

The Ordnance Department inspected the dockyard area and made plans to use what it could and remove the rest. The contemplated changes are indicated in notes found on an 1852 map.3 While not all proposals were carried out, demolition of many of the old naval buildings occurred soon after. The log

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guardhouse near the dockyard gate was taken down. The victualling office and wharf and original commodore’s wharf were demolished or allowed to sink into the harbour. The old 1813 privies, saw pits and shelter, mast house, and storehouses were removed. The yard foreman’s house, joiner shop, and steam house were knocked down. The Provincial Marine wharf, built in 1784, was already in ruins, essentially a rock jetty. Some of the older storehouses and boat sheds were torn down, while docks that had been built at the naval cottages were removed.4

In September 1854, a survey of the dockyard stone wall was completed. While most of the west wall and dockyard gate was found in good condition, the north sections that rested on low, swampy ground around the mast pond were deteriorated, with missing sections. Wooden fencing filled in some of the gaps. The south stone wall nearest Fort Frederick was gone, having been removed previously and replaced with a wooden fence.5

Beginning in the fall of 1855, David Taylor organized a series of public auctions to sell off the final quantities of naval stores. It began with sales of small arms: carbines, swords, shot and powder, powder horns, and bugles. By the Christmas auction, the items included blankets and sheets, horse harnesses, coats, more than 100 rugs, and 35 Canada stoves. Throughout the next few years at regular intervals, the dockyard would again hold auctions as the Ordnance Department continued to sell off military clothing and uniforms, forge hats, tools, tents, and hundreds of other items. Details of the items for sale were found in “Ordnance Sale” notices published in issues of the Daily British Whig. For example, the September 1, 1855, edition advertises many items listed above. Other editions include December 30, 1855; June 2, 1858; October 20, 1860; and April 10, 1862.

One of the sale events offered something special: a “Superior Fire Engine” with 200 feet of hose well suited for a country village. By 1860, “condemned” military stores offered for purchase included metal from discarded gun carriages. All the items were laid out at the dockyard on the day before the sale, and the condition was that items had to be removed within three days.

Before 1857, the Royal Engineers had operated their shops near the Kingston garrison. With these buildings about to be demolished, they were able to occupy an old naval building until the end of the British period.6 The Royal Artillery laboratory, basically a quality assurance facility evaluating rifle and artillery cartridges and gunpowder, took over the former naval storekeeper’s office.7 Again, the Stone Frigate began to fill up with ordnance stores.

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Fig. 19.3: An 1859

map showing the remaining buildings after the ordnance cleanup. It also shows only a few wartime buildings still remaining.

The question of a Royal Navy presence on Lake Ontario came up just once more. In the spring of 1866, the Fenian scare occurred when armed American civilian insurgents again crossed into Canada. The government mobilized the militia, and Kingston was host to the arrival of 14,000 parttime soldiers, many of whom were billeted in private homes. There were speeches, parades, and military demonstrations under the Union Jack,8 and the Canadian government requested that the Royal Navy station 10 gunboats on the Great Lakes.9

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Fig. 19.4. Detail

of a photograph of burned-out naval cottages, circa 1872. The fire started in the far-right unit and progressed north until it was stopped.

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Little became of the Fenian threat, but an idea first put forward by Sir James Yeo of bringing a naval force to Lake Ontario during an emergency by canal was demonstrated. Royal Navy gunboats reached Lake Ontario by using the Rideau Canal, landing at Kingston on June 11, 1866. According to the Kingston Daily News, the Royal Navy gunboat St. Andrew arrived in Kingston, escorted by the Watertown, a Kingston vessel with field pieces in the forward gangways manned by the Royal Artillery.

The St. Andrew anchored in Kingston Harbour. The captain, Lieutenant Spencer Smith, duly provided the many dignitaries with a tour of the vessel, including displays of the armoured plating. Thomas Kirkpatrick, speaking for the city, remembered HMS Cherokee as the last Royal Navy vessel that had sailed in these waters. He recalled the ships that served in the War of 1812 and during the rebellion. He mentioned the gallant Commodore Sandom and the crew of the “stone frigate” where the blue jackets were lodged rather than on board.10 The St. Andrew returned to Montreal the following day. There is no record that it entered Navy Bay.

On August 30, 1868, the south units of the naval cottages were destroyed by fire (see Fig. 19.4). The fire was first spotted in the southernmost cottage. It pushed north and spread inside the building due to high winds. Regular troops and the Kingston brigade fought the fire, which destroyed six units. The roof of a seventh was damaged by the firefighters. At that time, the naval cottages were the only married quarters available in Canada and were occupied by members of the Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment, a British unit. Fortunately, there were no injuries, but there was considerable loss of personal property.11

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Fig. 19.5: The red

arrow marks the southeast corner of the naval cottages. The crop marks in the grass denote the location of the foundations. This is where the fire started in 1868 that resulted in the destruction of six units.

The displaced families were put in tents until housing could be found. Ultimately, they may have been crowded into other cottage units. The burned sections of the naval cottages remained standing for several years (see Fig. 19.4) but were finally pulled down in 1875 in preparation for the new military college.12 The foundation outline can be seen on the modern landscape during dry periods (see Fig. 19.5).

With the creation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867, the country became responsible for its own defence. The British garrison marched out and disbanded on March 31, 1870,13 ending 87 years of continuous presence in Kingston. Later that year, the Kingston Daily News reported that the Admiralty property would be transferred to the Canadian government on December 21, 1870.14

Before it departed, the British military conducted an inventory of the residential properties and dockyard. Two small lots north of Admiralty House had been leased to private individuals. The Admiralty House grounds had grown into a cluster of structures that included stables, gardens, a carpenter shop, fuel shed, icehouse, and draw well. By 1870, the house was no longer occupied by a senior official but was divided into apartments able to accommodate up to two sergeants and 14 enlisted men or seven officers. It was also functioning as a school for 48 children, the classrooms likely in partitioned space in Commodore Barrie’s north addition.

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The much-altered surgeon’s dwelling was still occupied by an ordnance officer, the superintendent of military stores. The stone hospital cookhouse was empty and described as an old cottage. The naval cottages, now reduced to nine, were occupied by four families in each one. A military stores office was in the basement but was not used. There were wharfs along the shoreline, and a large wellhouse was located on the height of land east of the cottages. Outbuildings included privies, fuel sheds, and a stable.

At the dockyard gate, Sandom’s guardhouse and the adjacent dwelling were in good condition. The stone wall was described as “dilapidated.” To the northeast, inside the wall, was the stone magazine, then being utilized to store gunpowder for the militia. A tar house and lime store, employed in the past for masonry construction, were in ruins. The Royal Artillery laboratory building, dating from the Provincial Marine era, was still in use. The old paint store, built during the War of 1812, contained wheelbarrows and stoves in the basement. The upper structure of the Provincial Marine dock marked its presence with dilapidated pilings, a scattering of rotting wood, and the submerged rocks placed in 1783–84 by Major John Ross.

The Stone Frigate west yard still contained a relic of HMS Niagara, the wood yard fence extending west to the blacksmith building. The stone blacksmith shop was now partitioned into an iron store and scaled-down smithy. The two adjacent sheds were still present, both in poor condition. A road path reached from the dockyard gate to the west entrance of the Stone Frigate, more or less in a straight line. The St. Lawrence Wharf, renovated in 1865, consisted of a section of old wharf and coal store. The mould loft was used as a boat and storehouse, but the top floor was still an open space. Large and impressive at one time, it was now in poor shape and looked like a neglected barn.

Fort Frederick was in much better repair, having been continuously occupied until the departure of the British. It would be used and manned by the militia at least during summer training camps. Although it has shown substantial deterioration in recent years, due to neglect, it has remained essentially unchanged for more than 170 years.

During the occupancy of the naval cottages by families, an access road was developed to service the privies and stable. This road branched off the front road, straightening the left turn that intercepted the back road. The service road may also have supported a small quarry or a rock cut that lessened the downhill slope when the road was extended in a direct line to the yard

ordNANce dePArtmeNt

gate. This probably occurred after 1865, when concern about the state of the latrines and cesspools led to construction of new and better-designed privies.15 The access lane was formalized as a road by 1870, and the older road section was covered over soon after. The back road has more consistently maintained its line.

On October 3, 1870, the British fired the noon gun for the last time from Fort Henry,16 57 years after the practice started.17 In 1871, the first units of the permanent Canadian force, consisting of Batteries A and B, which were schools of gunnery, occupied the fort.18 With the departure of the British, the Active Militia was left to develop military programs and training. At first, this consisted of six schools conducting courses from December to May, with summer camps added.

The first of the summer camps at Point Frederick started in late June 1871. The camp was organized by the Third Military District under the command of Colonel Patterson, the assistant deputy adjutant general. Tents were pitched near the tower on Fort Frederick and on “an open plateau of level land of some thirty acres.” The camp soon “assumed an appearance of military uniformity and order.” The headquarters tents were “in the enclosure of the dockyard workshops … under the shadow of the famous ‘stone frigate.’”19

In the open ground to the rear were the cavalry. The field artillery was installed in Fort Frederick. The infantry was arranged around the field in numerical order, all in tents. The officers’ mess was located in the old mould loft. Some battalions had their tables on the upper floor, which was described as “a very pleasant, airy, lightsome place.” The camp was supplied by grocers, butchers, bakers, and brewers who “throng to the approaches to the camp.” There were medical officers, latrines were constructed, and bath parades were held each morning. The Stone Frigate was described as the “main storehouse of the Dominion.”20

Larger military exercises were conducted on the open ground north of Front Road on the Barriefield Common. The march from the dockyard to the exercise area, via the front road or back road, would have become familiar to all attending the camp. The Barriefield Common was described in the Kingston Daily News as the “scene of many a bloodless manoeuvre and grand review.”21

A “Grand Military Ball” was held in the Stone Frigate. Between 400 and 500 people attended. In describing the history of the building, reference was made in the Daily News to “the ‘stone frigate’ Niagara.” The article stated that

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Fig. 19.6: Detail of

a panorama of Point Frederick showing tents belonging to the militia during a pre-1875 summer training camp. The Stone Frigate stands out in the centre, partially obscured by the blacksmith building. the “berths of the sailors yet remain with their sacking bottoms” and “are well painted, with numbers distinctively lettered…. The floors were called decks, and the forecastle and quarter deck distinctions were rigidly kept up … in true naval style.” The dressing rooms for the ball “were in the cabins formerly occupied by the midshipmen and young officers of the Niagara.” The “supper tables were arranged in the captain’s cabin and adjoining cabins of the first and second lieutenants…. Nothing could surpass the exquisite view from the eastern windows.”22

During the winter, Fort Frederick was unoccupied, although active in the summer for training, a role that continued. During the summer of 1874, the militia was back (see Fig. 19.6). Aside from two leased cottages on the site, there were still people living in the remaining habitable naval cottages in 1874. James Knapp reported that two of his skiffs were stolen near the cottages on May 14.23

It was just a month later that Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie, the second to hold this title, paid his visit to Fort Henry. After inspecting Point Frederick with Major D.T. Irwin, Mackenzie returned to Ottawa by train and began the work of introducing a bill for the establishment of a military college.