Kings County (barque)

"Kings County" was a four masted barque built in 1890 at Kingsport, Nova Scotia on the Minas Basin. She was named to commemorate Kings County, Nova Scotia which she was built and represented the peak of the area's shipbuilding years. (A much smaller barque also named "Kings County" had been built in 1871.) "Kings County" was one of the largest wooden sailing vessels ever built in Canada and one of only two Canadian four masted barques. (The other being the slightly smaller "John M. Blaikie" of Great Village, Nova Scotia.) At first registered as a four masted full rigged ship, she was quickly changed to a barque after her June 2 launch. ["Hantsport Shipbuilding: 1849-1893", St. Clair Patterson, Hantsport: Tug Boat Publishing, 2008, p. 108.] Over three thousand people from Kings and Hants Counties attended the launch. She survived a collision with an iceberg in 1893 on a voyage to Swansea, Wales. Like many of the large wooden merchant ships built in Atlantic Canada, she spend most of her career far from home on trading voyages around the world. In 1909, she returned to the Minas Basin for a refit at Hantsport and loaded a large cargo of lumber. In 1911 she became the largest wooden ship to enter Havana harbour when she delivered a cargo of lumber and was briefly stranded. She was lost a few months later on a voyage to Monte Video when she ran aground at the River Plate. Too damaged to repair, she was scrapped in Monte Video where her massive timbers were visible for many years.

References

* "Historic Wolfville: Grand Pre and Countryside", Tom Sheppard, (Halifax: Nimbus, 2003), p. 150-151.
*"Sailing Ships of the Maritime" Charles Armour and Thomas Lackey (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1975), p. 180
*"In the Wake of the Windships", Frederick William Wallace, (London, 1927), p. 223-224.

External Links

* [http://daryl.chin.gc.ca:8000/SEARCH/BASIS/vessel/public/vessel/DDW?W%3DNAME+%3D+%27Kings+County%27+ORDER+BY+NAME/Ascend%26M%3D2%26K%3D21532%26R%3DY%26U%3D1 Parks Canada Ship Information Database Registry Informtation]
* [http://kingsport.ca/history/history.htm "A History of Kingsport", Cora Atkinson, Kingsport Community Association, 1980.]