HENDERSON, GEORGE (1850-1937)

HENDERSON, GEORGE, master builder of steam-boats; b. Chatham, 23 Dec 1850, s/o James Henderson and Mary Ingram; m. Euphemia Lamont, sister of Hugh Hunter Lamont; d. North Devon, N.B., 29 Jan 1937.

George Henderson moved from Chatham to Douglastown with his parents when he was a child and grew up to be a boat builder like his father. For a number of years he was a master builder of steamboats at the yard of his brother-in-law Hugh H. Lamont. In 1905 he built the tug Marshall W. for William Bryenton and in 1907 the ferry Dorothy N. for John Russell & Co. In 1910 he was the supervisor of construction for steamers for both the Miller Extract Co. and Daniel Sullivan & Sons of Red Bank. The best-known vessel of his design and construction was the Max Aitken, the last of the Miramichi freight and passenger ferries, which he built for the Newcastle Steamboat Co. in 1917-18. This ferry had an eighty-two-foot keel and sixteen-foot beam, developed a speed of nine knots, and was licensed to carry 150 passengers and twenty-five tons of freight. During most of her years of service on the river she was commanded by Capt. C. Spurgeon Amos.

Henderson was an elder of St Mark's Presbyterian Church at Douglastown and superintendent of the Sunday school. After the death of his wife, Euphemia Lamont, in 1927 he made his home in North Devon with a daughter, who was one of five children in the family.