SEA, FISH and SHIPS Shipbuilding For Prince Edward Island , shipbuilding was an obvious necessity in the early days of colonisation. During the relatively short French regime mostly small fishing boats were built, but one ship of 100 tons and two of 65 tons were built at St. Peter 's, then the commercial capital of He St. Jean; these were probably used to carry supplies to the garrison at . The early British settlers would also have built small fishing boats for themselves; in 1781 two larger ships were built, one at Charlottetown , the other at Vernon; and five years later two small ships were built at Stanhope . In the first quarter of the nineteenth century lumbering and shipbuilding developed rapidly on the Island. Ships were small in early years, for coastal use; later, larger ones were built, and often loaded with lumber, oats, cattle, for export to Newfoundland and , selling both ship and cargo abroad; ships and lumber were the principal Island exports to Great then. After the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, was deprived of Baltic timber, and turned to the colonies for supplies. During the Napoleonic wars and the subsequent peace there was a great demand for Island ships and timber, and this continued until the end of the century, when the best oak and pine had been used up here, and iron and steam were replacing wood and sail. In the decade 1821-30, 272 ships were built on P.E.I. ; numbers increased up to the peak decade 1861-70, when 914 ships were built, and thereafter declined. Shipbuilding was a decen?? tralising industry: many small villages grew up around shipyards, the homes of satellite trades such as lumbering, blacksmithing, sail- making. As well as the big names in shipbuilding ( Cambridge , Yeo, Peake) there were many smaller independent men who would go into their woods, cut the trees, saw the lumber, build their own ship, recruit a local crew and sail her all over the world. 50