Lumber
In the times of the first European settlers, in 1786, there were barely one hundred people living in the settlement called Weymouth, and probably not more than four hundred in the whole area.
Since the poor soil precluded much farming, lumbering and fishing developed as industries. In 1784 John Taylor and James Journeay built a sawmill and a grist mill, and in the same year Solomon Bunnell, his son and Samuel Goldsbury also constructed a sawmill on the north side of the Sissiboo River. More mills for the manufacture of lumber were built in 1790. James Moody and James Cosman erected a grist mill on Cosman's Creek, south of St. Peter's Church and an 1871 map shows a dam spanning the mouth of Cosman's Creek, (the mill pond) and a tidal sawmill at the same place.
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The lumber industry provided good business. Between 1803 and 1812, one-inch boards sold for $8 per thousand board feet at the sawmill, and pay for a laborer was 50 cents a day. At first, many of the logging operations were small family-run businesses and fishermen logged during the winter. Logs were sold to local mills and to small water-powered sawmills inland as well as near the coast. Oxen were used to haul the logs out of the forests and the teamsters who cared for them earned a higher wage.​
​​Such logging operations continued well into the 1900s. Sherwood Marshall remembered working in the woods in the 1930s and 40s before going off to war in 1943. The men got $1 for a ten hour day in 1935, but when the war started in 1939 wages went up to $2.50 a day with free room and board.
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Soon the timber close to the Sissiboo River had all been cut. Then logging had to be done further inland and the men lived in logging camps. Logs were floated downstream, and dams were built at lake outlets to hold the water back until it was needed. During the winter, logs were dumped on a frozen lake or in a pile beside the river.
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Such logging operations continued well into the 1900s. Sherwood Marshall remembered working in the woods in the 1930s and 40s before going off to war in 1943. The men got $1 for a ten hour day in 1935, but when the war started in 1939 wages went up to $2.50 a day with free room and board.
The Sissiboo Pulp and
Paper Company
Located in a few miles upriver from Weymouth, the Sissiboo Pulp and Paper Company ran a short line connecting their pulp mill at Weymouth Falls to the DAR at Weymouth from 1920 to 1928. The company began in 1894 as the Sissiboo Falls Paper Company with a mill located at Sissiboo Falls about 8 miles upriver from Weymouth. The company was purchased in 1899 by Charles Burrill of Weymouth who added a second mill at Weymouth Falls, 3 miles above Weymouth. Both mills were acquired in 1904 by G.D. Campbell of Weymouth and then by the British industrialist Frederick Becker of London, England in 1919. Becker had already purchased the Clyde River Pulp Company in Shelburne County and combined the two companies into the Sissiboo-Clyde Pulp and Paper Company.
Lewis Mouldings
and Wood Specialties
Harry and Gifford Lewis began a lumber and sawmill business in Weymouth in 1949. Spruce was the main raw material and private wood lot owners provided a good supply. In January 1951 the Lewis Lumber Company was incorporated, the mill modernized and production boosted to from 12,000 to 18,000 board feet a shift.
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In 1959 a fire destroyed the mill and machinery. It was rebuilt later that same year. Five years later another fire destroyed the mill, and again it was rebuilt within the year. Through the 60s, 70s and 80s various executive changes were made, but then in 1991 another fire completely destroyed the mill and its equipment. In 2021 a major fire damaged the structure which was mostly saved, but with extensive damage. (‘Total devastation’: Massive fire at N.S. lumber plant hits area’s largest employer - Halifax | Globalnews.ca)
Shipbuilding
James Moody arrived in Weymouth in June, 1786 with compensation from the British government for his military duties during the Revolution. Moody was a community builder, and is considered by many as one of the founding fathers of Weymouth. Moody built a shipyard and his first ship was a three-mastered square-rigger. The Loyalist was 84 feet overall with a capacity of 193 tons. She was said to be the second ship built in the province, and was launched on July 5, 1788.
However times were not easy for the early settlers. Those involved with shipbuilding and lumbering were successful at first but in 1793 the war between England and France put an end to shipbuilding. Moody's ships had been sent to England, but several had been sunk.​
The lack of roads and large rivers for lumber transport was also a problem. The stony soil around Weymouth makes farming difficult and in 1806 even James Moody could not produce enough hay to feed a cow through the winter. He could no longer employ shipuilders and the economy suffered.
Colin Campbell III
Colin Campbell I was a Scottish immigrant who had lived in New York and Shelburne before settling in Weymouth in 1828. Colin I was appointed "Supervisor of Customs for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia" and was a member of the Assembly. he opened the first Post Office east of the Sissiboo River and operated it until his death in 1835.
His grandson, Colin Campbell III, became one of the most successful and wealthiest businessmen in Weymouth of the 1800's. One reason was an inheritance from his family's housekeeper, Polly Killigrew, who left all her savings to her favourite charge. Colin Campbell III used the money to begin as a merchant, operating a general store in Weymouth in the 1840's and in 1854 he established his own shipyard near the general store in Weymouth. Over the next 27 years Colin built a total of 19 ships and all but one were built in Weymouth with Reuben Hankinson as master builder. 18 of them were named after a member of his family. He had paintings commissioned of each ship and these were hung in his house "Beechwood". More details of these ships, their journeys and cargos, and the paintings may be found at Sissiboo Landing Visitor Information Center.
The ships were loaded with lumber and returned with coal, sugar and molasses.
Colin III was known to have quite a temper and in 1881, when he heard that one of his ships had gone aground near the mouth of the Sissiboo river, he took a team of horses out onto the mud flats at low tide to reprimand the captain. While on board he became so angry that he had a heart attack and died right out there on the mud flats. He was 58 at the time and his ships were at the height of their profit making.
Other Shipyards
Besides the Campbell enterprises there was the "Chain Lightning Gang" - Hankinson-Lent shipyards at Weymouth Point and Jones' shipyards where the Irving wharf is now. There was also one down Payson's Lane at Hatches creek and the Rice brothers built ships three kilometers up river.
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LeBlanc Shipbuilding and Fairmiles
By 1939 few, if any, sailing ships were to be seen in Weymouth. The days of shipping lumber from the busy wharves were gone and a new type of shipbuilding was now in demand. World War II had just begun and merchant ships and naval vessels were needed.
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John LeBlanc had a shipyard where he had been building yachts. Now he could build Fairmiles, so called because they were designed by the British Fairmiles Company. They were built from a kit, shipped in by railroad. Eighty-eight Fairmiles were built in Canada, seven were built in Weymouth between April 1942 and April 1944. and a further eight American Fairmiles were built in the same shipyard between1941 and1943. These Fairmiles were built of mahogany, and were 112 feet long and 18 feet wide. They patrolled the entire North American East Coast from Labrador to the West Indies. They also acted as fast runners and assisted in minesweeping activities.
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Jones Pop factories
Bottling pop was a business in Weymouth North that employed people for nearly 70 years. In 1924 Weymouth Spring Bottling Co. was started by Capt. John Stuart. In 1934 Harry McMann bought the company and rented it to Sidney Ladd Jones, who later took ownership of the business with the help of his father. Kist beverages were bottled at the time.
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Cereno Goodwin Jones then operated the Weymouth Spring bottling plant until 1941, when he and his brother Harry began the Jones Bottling Plant.
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An advertisement placed in the 1957 WCHS yearbook by Jones Bottling Co. states they were authorized bottlers of Pepsi-Cola, Orange Crush and John Collins and in 1972 they purchased the 7Up franchise.
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Products continue to be bottled and trucked throughout the area until the plant was closed in about 1992. Today the plant, now owned by Canadian Artesian Springs, still stands at the location of the Weymouth Water Fountain, where locals come for "the best water in North America".
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Credits to Karla Kelly, Roberta Journeay and Ian Campbell for much information on this page.