29 Facts About Samuel Cunard

Sir Samuel Cunard, 1st Baronet, was a British-Canadian shipping magnate, born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who founded the Cunard Line, establishing the first scheduled steamship connection with North America.

Samuel Cunard was the son of a master carpenter and timber merchant who had fled the American Revolution and settled in Halifax.

Samuel Cunard was the second son of Abraham Cunard, a Quaker and Margaret Murphy, a Roman Catholic.

Samuel Cunard's great-great-grandfather had been a dyer in Crefeld there, but emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1683.

Abraham Samuel Cunard was a Loyalist to the British Crown and moved to Halifax in 1783, after the American Revolution.

Samuel Cunard married Margaret Murphy, another Loyalist emigree that year.

Abraham Samuel Cunard was a master carpenter who worked for the British garrison in Halifax and became a wealthy landowner and timber merchant.

Margaret Cunard's alcoholism spurred Samuel Cunard to assume responsibilities at an early age.

Samuel Cunard later joined his father in the family timber business, which expanded into investments in shipping.

Samuel Cunard held many public offices, such as volunteer fireman and lighthouse commissioner, and maintained a reputation as not only a shrewd businessman, but an honest and generous citizen.

Samuel Cunard was a highly successful entrepreneur in Halifax shipping and one of a group of twelve individuals who dominated the affairs of Nova Scotia.

Samuel Cunard secured mail packet contracts and provided a fisheries patrol vessel for the province.

Samuel Cunard purchased large amounts of land in Prince Edward Island, at one point owning a seventh of the province, which involved him in the protracted disputes between tenants on the island and the absentee landlords who owned most of it.

Samuel Cunard became president of the company in 1836 and arranged for steam power for their second ferry, Boxer in 1838.

Samuel Cunard led Halifax investors to combine with Quebec business in 1831 to build the pioneering ocean steamship Royal William to run between Quebec and Halifax.

Samuel Cunard commissioned a coastal steamship named Pochohontas in 1832 for mail service to Prince Edward Island and later purchased a larger steamship Cape Breton to expand the service.

Samuel Cunard went to the United Kingdom seeking investors in 1837.

Samuel Cunard set up a company with several other businessmen to bid for the rights to run a transatlantic mail service between the UK and North America.

Samuel Cunard's ships proved successful, but their high costs saddled Samuel Cunard with heavy debts by 1842, and he had to flee to England from creditors in Halifax.

However, by 1843, Samuel Cunard ships were earning enough to pay off his debts and begin issuing modest but growing dividends.

Samuel Cunard divided his time between Nova Scotia and England but increasingly left his Nova Scotian operations in the hands of his sons Edward and William, as business drew him to spend more time in London.

Samuel Cunard made a special trip to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in 1850, when his brother Joseph Samuel Cunard's timber and shipping businesses in New Brunswick collapsed in a bankruptcy that threw as many as 1000 people out of work.

Samuel Cunard took out loans and personally guaranteed all of his brother's debts in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Boston.

Joseph Cunard moved to Liverpool, England where Samuel helped him re-establish his shipping interests.

In 1859 Samuel Cunard was made a baronet by Queen Victoria.

Sir Samuel Cunard died at Kensington in London on 28 April 1865.

On 28 February 1828, Susan Samuel Cunard died due to complications after Elizabeth's birth.

Sir Samuel Cunard was succeeded in both the business and the baronetcy by his oldest son, Sir Edward Cunard, 2nd baronet, who married Mary Bache McEvers, and through whom the baronetcy was passed down.

William Cunard, second son of Sir Samuel Cunard, married Laura Charlotte Haliburton, daughter of author and politician Thomas Chandler Haliburton.