Kings Wharf
In 1907 Jerome Berre King acquired the shipyard in Newport Landing with the intention of exporting gypsum to his wallboard factory in New York’s Staten Island, a business he had been growing since 1876.
As the principal owner of the Newport Plaster Mining and Manufacturing Company, J.B. King operated several gypsum quarries on the Avon Peninsula, employing 125 men year-round until work transferred to a facility in Wentworth after a general strike in 1920.
The quarries were connected by railway, which stretched over 5 and a half kilometres weaving back and forth across the uneven Karst terrain of the peninsula. Several horse drawn carts, seventy five 5-ton side dump cars and three locomotives transported gypsum to Kings Wharf, where it was loaded by elevator during high tide, to be shipped to the J.B. King Co. in New York City for processing.
Today very little remains of the former shipping pier and surrounding neighbourhood homes that dotted the length of New Town Road.
As the principal owner of the Newport Plaster Mining and Manufacturing Company, J.B. King operated several gypsum quarries on the Avon Peninsula, employing 125 men year-round until work transferred to a facility in Wentworth after a general strike in 1920.
The quarries were connected by railway, which stretched over 5 and a half kilometres weaving back and forth across the uneven Karst terrain of the peninsula. Several horse drawn carts, seventy five 5-ton side dump cars and three locomotives transported gypsum to Kings Wharf, where it was loaded by elevator during high tide, to be shipped to the J.B. King Co. in New York City for processing.
Today very little remains of the former shipping pier and surrounding neighbourhood homes that dotted the length of New Town Road.
Google Earth image of Newport Landing, 2016