by Bradley Shoebottom
UNB MA Thesis 1999
The career of Gaius Turner, shipbuilder and entrepreneur of Harvey Bank, Albert County, New Brunswick, during the last... more
The career of Gaius Turner, shipbuilder and entrepreneur of Harvey Bank, Albert County, New Brunswick, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, offers a revealing case study of the practices and problems of the shipbuilding industry in this period of decline. As a fledgling entrepreneur Turner eschewed his father’s more cautious preoccupation with agriculture and timber in favour of the volatile industry of
constructing wooden ocean-going ships. For eighteen years beginning in 1875 he averaged one vessel of approximately 900 tons per year. Profits from shipbuilding allowed him to continue his trading in timber, hay and potatoes and to invest in ocean going and coastal vessels. During the depression of the late 1870s Turner had financial difficulties but he re-emerged stronger when the shipping market improved. The death of his father allowed him to expand into railway development and he built the Harvey Branch Railway. His involvement in railways and his political career intertwined when he turned against the Liberal-Conservative government in order to get Liberal support for his railway plans for southern Albert County. In return A.G. Blair appointed him to
his cabinet. Political controversy continued over the Albert Southern Railway and Turner eventually abandoned his support of the Liberals, attempting to build the railway
with his own resources and the federal subsidies. This proved to be a mistake; with disruptions in provincial subsidies payments, federal aid came too little and too late to
prevent his eventual bankruptcy in 1892. With Turner’s death that year, much of the industrial activity at Harvey Bank and surrounding parish ground to a halt as the community lost the principal source of its entrepreneurial ambition.
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