'A long voyage before us': New Brunswick's Holder family and the nineteenth-century seafaring experience

The late nineteenth-century "golden age of sail" was an important period in the economic and social history of Canada's Maritime Provinces. The construction of vessels generated significant capital for communities throughout the Maritimes and Canadian merchant mariners travelled to ports all over the world. Shipbuilding and shipping also created unique community and family relationships.;This thesis examines the experiences of the New Brunswick's Holder family who built and sailed merchant vessels around the world. It places the Holders within the context of recent American, British, and Canadian scholarship which looks beyond merchants, mariners, shipbuilders and vessel owners when considering the impact of the shipping industry. This study combines various approaches to examine the involvement of one family and community in shipbuilding, and the impact that seafaring had on shaping marital and family relations.;This study re-affirms the importance of family and community to a history of seafaring. Capital from the shipping industry made a significant contribution to the economy of the Holders' home community. North Atlantic seafaring families shared elements of a common culture. Mariners' wives at home managed finances and relied on kin. Mariners and their families battled loneliness and separation with a multi-layered network of communication or by sailing together. When captains took wives and children to sea, the vessel and foreign ports provided unique spaces in which to bring up children. Family and community were crucial to the success of the industry, which, in turn, shaped the lives and world view of mariners and their families.