Chapter 2
William's World

There was never more life around St. John's harbour than there was the year William Pender died. There was never more industry and hope. No place in the world exported more salt cod fish than Newfoundland. No port in Newfoundland was as busy as St. John's.

Hundreds of small cooperage shops hid in the lanes and alleys. Big shops like Norman Cousens on the South Side hired hundreds of coopers like William Pender. Other crafts people sawed, hammered and caulked for the fishery. Sail makers like Isaac Morris cut and sewed canvas for the sealing fleets. To fit and build the ships, it took riggers, block makers, mast makers, caulkers and shipwrights.

More workers supplied the fishermen and crafts people with goods they needed to live and work. William Pender's children would grow up to shake their heads and say, "There's no industry in this town now." They would go to a shop to buy a bag of nails, or a length of stove pipe. They would find it had been made in Leeside, Ontario. They would tell their children that Newfoundland once made all it needed.

"We had the rope walk for making nets," they'd remember. "We had the nail foundry. We made the best stove in the world-the King Edward. We had shoe factories, clothing factories and tanneries. There were blacksmiths and tinsmiths, the coopers, and butterine factories. We had four or five bakeries."

They would see it all in their minds' eye, and they ended by saying, "It's the people that make the city."

William Pender could not walk out his door without smelling industry. On his own South Side Hill were seal oil and cod liver oil factories. Come spring when the first sealing fleets returned, the thick smell of the fat crept over the garden fences. Women hung their washing out under the stars. They said the night air wasn't as bad.