The Mississauga Legend of Emily Blower

Stonehookers in Port Credit Harbour, from Toronto Telegram, 1932

The story goes something like this – Emily Blower of Port Credit, a widowed mother with several young children, became the first woman in Canada to register a sailing vessel in the Dominion of Canada in 1868. It is a story we have often retold. Only challenge – while it was recorded and repeated many times over the years, beginning (we think) in the 1920s – we are hard pressed to figure out if it is true.

Certainly, Emily Blower’s story of trials and tribulations have captured the interest of several writers and story tellers over the years. Renowned Great Lakes nautical historian C.H.J. Snider in his Schooner Days column in the Toronto Telegram newspaper in 1949 recounted:

Not long ago Captain Al Hare of Port Credit, in his eighties, told of seeing Emily Blower wading waist deep in lake water, her black skirt ballooning up around her with the air it held, while she helped the little boys load the box-like scow in which they had to ferry the stone out to the empty Catherine Hays, anchored as close into shore as they dared to bring her.

But what do we know for certain of Emily Blower’s story?

The Blower family of Port Credit was a well-known sailing and stonehooking family. Their first vessel, the Catherine Hays, was owned by Thomas Blower (1823-c1868). Known affectionately as The Kate, the Catherine Hays had been built back in 1833. She was known to be a leaky, small and old, but nonetheless a fast and reliable little ship.

Thomas Blower (also recorded as Bloores) was born in 1823 in Lancashire, England in 1823. He was the only member of his immediate family to immigrate to Canada, settling in Port Credit. His aunt, Sarah Blower, had married Abraham Block and had come to Port Credit first, perhaps paving the way for Thomas Blower to follow.

Captain Mark Blower, from Toronto Telegram, 1932

In 1852 (some references say 1850) Thomas married Emily Gourling of Sydenham (Dixie) in historic Mississauga (Emily’s maiden name is also recorded as Gerling, Geurling and Gorling). Emily had been born in Scotland in 1829. At present, we  know that Emily and Thomas had at least eight children: Mary (1852-1868), Mark (1854-1932), Thomas Jr. (1856-1909), Joseph (1858-?), Rachel (1860-1951), James (1863-1940), George “Samson” (1866-1928) and Abraham (1869-1908). There are also some references to other possible children (namely Charles and Martha Ann). It is possible that some of their children may have died relatively young – specifically Mary, Joseph, Charles and Martha Ann.

What is a consistent part of the many narratives about Emily Blower is that she became a widow with six or seven young children to feed and no form of social support. However, there is some confusion about when Thomas Blower passed away. The date is often given as 1866 or 1868 or 1870. We know for certain that he had passed away by 1871. Given that Emily and Thomas had children listed as being born in 1866 and 1869, the 1870 date for Thomas’ passing seems plausible. Betty Clarkson recounted some of the story in “Credit Valley Gateway” (1967): “When Emily Blower was left a widow sometime in the 1860s, she had six children to feed; five of them were boys, the oldest twelve years. There was no welfare to help widows in those days but Emily had the Catherine Hays, her late husband’s stonehooker, which leaked and needed constant care.”

Another story about Mark Blower, the eldest son, indicates that he was between 12 and 14 years old when his father passed away. So, since Mark was born in 1854, that would make his father’s passing as between 1866 and 1868. 1868 would fit if Emily were pregnant with Abraham (born 1869) when Thomas passed.

However, another article, recounting the great Easter harbour fire at Port Credit in 1855, referenced “the whole Blower clan hove with might and main on the Catharine Hays, the little sloop with the outboard rudder that was their widowed mother's whole fortune.” Thomas had to have been still alive in 1855, so the reference to their widowed mother in 1855 cannot be accurate, although we cannot doubt the efforts that must have taken place to save the Catherine Hays from the raging inferno. In the end, we really do not know for certain when Thomas died, it was likely sometime between 1868 and 1870. Clear as mud, right?

Port Credit Harbour - Stonehooker Lillian, c1900

More of Emily’s story was retold by C.H.J. Snider, and later shared by Betty Clarkson and Lorne Joyce: following the passing of her husband, Emily Blower moved her young family onto the Catherine Hays – the small boat served as both their home and their only source of income. Clarkson wrote: “Mrs. Blower was a woman of strength and courage. Without losing time on mourning, she moved into the forty-one-foot Catherine Hays with her young family and began shipping cordwood to Toronto …”

The story evolves from their shipping cordwood to engaging in the stonehooking trade, referencing again the memory of Captain Al Hare of Port Credit seeing Emily Blower wading waist deep in lake water, her black skirt ballooning up around her, as she hauled stone from the shallows to transport and sell in Toronto. C.H.J. Snider elaborated further:

Mrs. Blowers' resources were good health, a good little daughter five little boys, Mark, Tommy, Jim, George and Abram, and a little sloop called the Catharine Hayes which her husband had by industry managed to buy. With seven or eight mouths to feed, including her own and the Catharine Emily had little time for mourning. She moved into the Catharine Hayes, family and all. There was work all summer carrying cordwood to Toronto for steamboat and locomotive fuel, piled up at Hamilton's wharf at the foot of Scott street, and Emily strove to get her share of it. Ten cords was the most the Catharine could carry, and 50 cents a cord "big freight" money. She was lucky to average two rounds trips a week. The Catherine was the most voracious of the family. She drank lake water by the barrel and devoured oakum by the bale to stanch her thirst, and demanded cordage, canvas, tallow, pitch and hardware all the time. Ten dollars a week was not enough to feed and clothe a family of seven—and the Catharine Hayes. Emily eked it out by stonehooking when she could, picking up building stone along the lake shore. Stonehooking was hard work for able-bodied men, but the work itself was no job for a woman … But Mrs. Emily Bowers, relict of the late Thomas Blowers, deceased, was a super woman. Every stone had to be lifted from the bottom of the lake to the scow, from the scow to the deck, from the deck to the hold … Then they had to be carried to the city and be got up on deck again and out on the dock, before the coveted $5 a toise could be wrung from the buyer.

From other recorded sources, Emily befriended the Abbs family in Toronto, and James and Sarah Abbs took in Emily’s daughter Rachel to help ease the Blower family burden. In 1869 (lending support to Thomas Blower’s passing prior to 1869) the Catherine Hays was extensively overhauled and rebuilt, in part through the financial assistance of James Abbs. The Catherine Hays was then rechristened as the James Abbs. Rebuilt and re-rigged as a schooner with greater carrying capacity, and the work was done by the Blower boys themselves with the kind assistance and guidance from several Port Credit shipwrights.

We first find the James Abbs, ex Catherine Hays, registered as a vessel in 1871, owned by Mrs. Emily Blowers, and sailed by members of the Blowers family. According to several sources, Mark Blower (known to many who knew him as Captain Markie Blow) had taken charge of the ship by the early 1870s. The Blower brothers continued to sale the James Abbs until about 1884. The Blower brothers acquired other stonehooking vessels over the years as well, including the Madeline, Elizabeth Ann, Lillian, Newsboy and the Reindeer. From Schooner Days by C.H.J. Snider in 1932: “While the ‘hookers were here, the Blower boys sailed ‘em.”

But back to the other part of the story and the Dominion Ship Registry. The Catherine Hays (spelt Catharine Hayes) was registered in 1866 under the ownership of Bloores (possibly a misspelling of Blower) with the home port of Oakville. It seems likely that Thomas Blower would have been the registered owner in 1866. No other registrations for the Catherine Hays have been located thusfar, and no indication if Emily was ever listed as the owner. The next registration for the ship is as the James Abbs in 1871 under the ownership of Emily Blower. While the Blowers were said to have retired the James Abbs in 1884, they may well have simply sold the ship. What happened to the Catherine Hays/James Abbs is currently unknown.

As for Emily herself, it is not known for certain when she passed away, although one reference in connection to her son indicates that Emily died around 1896. She is believed to be buried in Springcreek Cemetery in Clarkson, alongside Thomas, although there is no gravestone. Several other generations of the Blower family are buried there. Through marriages the Blowers are also related to the Block and Peer families of Port Credit, amongst many others.

We will leave the last word on Emily to C.H.J. Snider, as Emily’s story seems to have held a special place in his heart:

With her family well settled as the saying is, and doing credit to her, Grandma Blowers quietly withdrew from the scene and went to her reward beloved by all … If I had the money the new pier head lights for the new entrance for the new harbor of Port Credit would shine from the heads of two bronze statues, one on each side of the channel. One would be for Grandma Emily Blowers; and one would be for Aunt Betsey Sharpe, wife of a long-ago harbormaster. Both women were the mothers of the port.

There are no known pictures of Emily Blower.