Pictou Shipyard

Although the official founding by W. H. Davies did not occur until 1856, Pictou's ship registry began in 1840.^[4]: 12 Shipbuilding and ship repair began in Pictou in various places near the town a few years after settlement in 1773 via the Hector, with the first cargo of squared timber leaving Pictou in 1774.^[4]: 11 Other than the current site itself, the most significant site in the shipbuilding industry was located on Windmill Point where Captain William Lowden first settled in 1788. He eventually moved into the town of Pictou and continued his ship work. Captain Lowden is traditionally considered to be the father of shipbuilding in Pictou County, as he was made famous by his construction of the Harriet in 1798. At 600 tons she was built with room for twenty-four guns and was supposed to be the largest and finest ship built in the province at that time. He was not the first builder, however, as there is a record of a small one-mast vessel being launched in Pictou Harbour in 1788 by Thomas Copeland, and the county's first schooner named the Anne was built in 1788 at Merigomish, Nova Scotia.^{[4]: 17–18} Shipbuilding and work continued throughout the early 1800s. Before the age of steam the types of ships built were schooners, brigs, and brigantines, barques and barquentines and full-rigged ships.^[4]: 20 Most notable was the yard's work on the SS Royal William on her fully steam-powered voyage across the Atlantic.^[2]

W. H. Davies, who left the Albion Iron Foundry in 1854, completed and managed his own foundry on the Pictou waterfront in 1856. Davies's sons George and Charles carried on the foundry's operation until the late 1800s, when they sold it to Joseph Robb and Douglas Hannon. In 1906 Allan A. Ferguson bought out the interests of Robb, and the business was renamed as the Pictou Foundry and Machine Company. In 1910 Douglas Hannon died, and Ferguson became the sole owner and head of the business.^[4]: 33

During Ferguson's twenty-five years of management of the foundry, it was diversified, with an expansion of machine, moulding, boiler, carpenter and pattern-work operations. This allowed for the lease of machine-shop facilities to early automobile mechanics. During 1913 the plant was equipped with electromotive power and was the first in the area to change from steam. After the outbreak of the Great War, the company participated in the war effort and machine finished thousands of shells forged in Trenton, Nova Scotia. Once the war was over and peace was enjoyed for another two decades, the primary work for the Pictou Foundry and Machine Company was both steel and wooden ship and dredge repairs.^{[4]: 33–34}

Ferguson died in 1932, and the business was then taken over by his eldest son, Robert A. Ferguson, who upon the outbreak of war was joined by his three brothers, Allan A. Ferguson Junior, Thomas Ferguson and James Ferguson. Before World War II there had not been a ship launched in Pictou since the barque Orquell in 1879.^{[4]: 33–34 [2]}