N U M B E R 5 8 ■ AUTUMN 2018 ■ $ 2 . 0 0 ■ HENRY FRY: 19TH-CENTURY SHIPOWNER, PART II ■ 90 YEARS AGO: LINDBERGH’S VISIT TO QUEBEC CITY ■ KEN DRYDEN AT THE LITERARY FEAST The Morrin Centre is managed by the Literary & Historical Society of Quebec. Society Pages is published with the assistance of Canada Post. Quebec Heritage News Subscribe Now! Quebec’s English-language heritage magazine. Popular history – Profiles of remarkable people and events – Contemporary issues in heritage conservation – Book reviews – Insightful commentary – and much more. Individual: $30 for 1 year; $75 for 3 years; $120 for 5 years Institutional: $40 for 1 year; $100 for 3 years; $160 for 5 years To pay by cheque, please mail payment to: QAHN, 400-257 rue Queen, Sherbrooke QC J1M 1K7. or pay by Paypal to: [email protected]. For more information, call (819) 564-9595 Toll free: 1-877-964-0409. EDITOR Kathleen Hulley LAYOUT Patrick Donovan PROOFREADING Hoffman Wolff NUMBER 58 ■ AUTUMN 2018 ■ PUBLISHER Literary & Historical Society of Quebec CONTENTS 44 chaussée des Écossais Quebec, Quebec G1R 4H3 PHONE 418-694-9147 Letter from the President 2 Barry Holleman GENERAL INQUIRIES [email protected] From the Executive Director 2 Barry McCullough WEBSITE www.morrin.org Transactions ■ Henry Fry: Shipowner, Part II 3 John & Henry Fry LHSQ COUNCIL Lindbergh in Quebec City 6 Charles André Nadeau [email protected] Barry Holleman, President Georges-Barthélémy Faribault 8 François Faribault Ladd Johnson, Vice-President Gina Farnell, Treasurer In Memory of Cameron MacMillan 9 Shirley Nadeau Diana Cline, Secretary Donald Fyson, Honorary Librarian Fundraising Jacob Stone, Member at Large Éric Thibault, Member at Large Marietta Freeland Fund for the Arts 10 K. Burgess & B. McCullough Jean-David Banville Peter Black Library Pages Jack Bryden Katherine Burgess On the Shelf: Hockey 11 Britta Gundersen-Bryden Arthur Plumpton Grant Regalbuto New Acquisitions 13 Cheryl Rimmer New in Overdrive 14 Sovita Chander, Ex-Officio David F. Blair, Ex-Officio Library Tables Makeover 15 Rosemarie Fischer Tomas Feininger, Ex-Officio Events & Activities ■ Arts Alive! 16 Vivianne Carrier DIRECTOR Barry McCullough Book Quest 17 Kathleen Hulley Executive Director [email protected] Upcoming Events 18 FULL-TIME STAFF Claude Blaney Reading Clubs 19 Building Caretaker Gail Cameron Miscellanea Accounting & Financial Clerk [email protected] Music: Neil Young 20 Barry McCullough Rosemarie Fischer Management Assistant [email protected] Manon Fortin Rentals Coordinator [email protected] LIBRARY HOURS Viviane Carrier Events Coordinator [email protected] Kathleen Hulley Sunday 12:00PM-4:00PM Library Manager [email protected] Monday CLOSED Stefanie Johnston Guided Tours Coordinator Tuesday 12:00PM-8:00PM [email protected] Elizabeth Perreault Development & Communications Director Wednesday 12:00PM-4:00PM [email protected] Thursday 12:00PM-4:00PM ■ The mission of the Morrin Centre Friday 12:00PM-4:00PM is to share and foster English-language culture in the Quebec City region. Saturday 10:00AM-4:00PM The Morrin Centre is administered by the Literary & Historical Society of Quebec. ISSN 1913-0732 Front cover: Misses Satchmo at the 2018 Arts Alive! festival. SOCIETY PAGES LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT Dear Members, Partners, and Honorary President. Mr. Cormier is the President and Friends, Chief Executive Officer of Desjardins Group, and is very involved with philanthropic endeavours and I hope you have all enjoyed a cultural organizations. The evening promises to be an restful summer full of warm extraordinary one. weather. People from around the globe have been making Last October, we were saddened to learn of the passing the most of our great summer of Marietta Freeland, a long-time member. In her will, in Quebec City, and tours and she generously bequeathed funds to the LHSQ. In her rentals have been busier than honour, I am pleased to announce the creation of the ever at the Morrin Centre. I Marietta Freeland Fund for the Arts. Revenue generated fully expect this momentum to continue this autumn as from the fund will directly support the Morrin Centre’s we have a number of wonderful events and activities arts and culture programming. We are very grateful to planned. Marietta, and we know that her donation will have a long-lasting effect on both the Morrin Centre and our On November 15, we will hold our tenth annual entire community. To learn more about how you can Literary Feast fundraising dinner. For this very special contribute to the fund, please check out the feature in occasion, it is our great honour to welcome Ken the centre of this issue of Society Pages. Dryden as Keynote Speaker. Mr. Dryden is a former Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister, and is Thank you for your support, perhaps best known as the goaltender who won six Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens. We are also Barry Holleman fortunate to have Guy Cormier as the evening’s President FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Dear Friends, Members, and media outlets. Partners, “Elites and Orphans” explores the contrasting The Morrin Centre welcomed experiences of leisure and play for Anglophone children more visitors than ever this from different social milieus at the turn of the summer. It is such a pleasure to nineteenth century. The project includes an exhibition see our guides telling the featuring select toys from the Stephens Collection, as stories of our building and our well as an event with talks by historians. community to visitors from all over the world. It really is a Details about these projects will be announced in the wonderful opportunity for us to coming weeks, so be sure to follow us on Facebook and share our unique story with so many people. at morrin.org. Over the summer, we have been busy putting together Don’t miss Members’ Day, which will feature great our upcoming cultural programming. We have two activities offered exclusively to members, including a great projects kicking off this fall. beer tasting. Some of these activities will have a limited number of places available, so be sure to reserve ahead “In the Press: Promoting Community Involvement and of time. Development Through Storytelling” is a series of four workshops that will cover digital storytelling, broadcast I am looking forward to seeing you this fall, journalism, podcasts, and writing for newspapers and magazines. The workshops will be led by experienced Barry McCullough journalists and storytelling professionals from various Executive Director PAGE 2 AUTUMN 2018 TRANSACTIONS REMINISCENCES OF A 19TH-CENTURY QUEBEC SHIPOWNER By Henry Fry and John Fry INTRODUCTION REMINISCENSCES: PART II1 During the middle of the nineteenth century, Quebec City’s shoreline, from the St. Charles River to Sillery, sprawled with U.S. SHIP BARGAIN shipyards building giant square-rigged ships. Shipbuilding, In 1859 I loaded a ship called the Sunbeam of Boston for ship owning, and timber commerce, London. The Civil War was raging & conducted by men like the British gold was at 33% premium. Silver even immigrant merchant Henry Fry had all disappeared, & shinplasters (1826–1896), profoundly affected down to 5 cents were the only the city’s economic life. currency. Her price was $24,000 in greenbacks, & I closed at once. The Fry possessed an encyclopedic broker thought I had paid a long price knowledge of cargo rates, tariffs, as she was 17 years old, but none of ship insurance, hull and deck design, the Yankees could then see that their and the details of sails and rigging. paper dollar, being a legal tender, was “No man had a better knowledge of not as good as the Government old Quebec shipping and shipbuilding,” dollar. In truth she only cost me wrote the British maritime historian $18,000 Canadian money. Frederick William Wallace. The Sunbeam was by far the cheapest Fry rose to become President of the & best ship I ever owned. At Quebec, Quebec Board of Trade and I usually loaded her myself for President of Canada’s Dominion London, & several of her cargoes left Board of Trade. In 1891, he wrote a handsome profits. I gave so many memoir with illustrations that he invalids a free passage to London in drew of the ships he owned. The Sunbeam (including Rev. Marsh, Reminiscences is a window into the Revd & Mrs. Edwards, & Geo. Holt), life of a leading citizen in Quebec that I called her my “hospital ship.” City between 1854 and 1880. Henry Fry, Montreal, QC, 1862 - John Fry Photograph by William Notman, INSULTED IN MY OWN Source: McCord Museum, 1-70327.1. HOUSE Part 1 appeared in the Summer In March 1863 I gave command of the 2018 issue of Society Pages. Part 2 “Lotus” to my brother, Samuel offers more never-before-published excerpts, edited by Holmes Fry. Henry Fry’s great-grandson, John Fry. John Fry is the author of the biography A Mind at Sea: Henry Fry and the He had a queer temper. In 1865, in a very surly manner, Glorious Era of Quebec’s Sailing Ships, published by he declined to sail the sailing ship Lotus any longer, as he Dundurn Press in 2012. He worked as a magazine editor at wanted a better ship. I was vexed, as prices were high, the Times Mirror Co. and the New York Times Co., and but, as I was the eldest son, I deemed it my duty to do all is a director of Canada’s Chawkers Foundation. I could to help my brothers. So I went up to London & ■ bought a very fine St. John-built ship of 1100 tons specially for him, £4,300. In 1867 Sam grossly insulted me in my own house and I requested him to resign. Afterwards lived in idleness until it was spent. 1 These excerpts have been reproduced from the original text.