Oakville Was a Shipbuilding Town

For a period in the early 1800s, Oakville’s waterfront carried most of the town’s activity. The mouth of Sixteen Mile Creek was crowded with timber, tools, and people moving between shore and ship. This was where work happened, day after day.

Many people don’t know this, but ships were built here.

Timber came down the creek from nearby forests and farms, was shaped by hand along the shoreline, and assembled into working vessels. When a ship was finished, it was launched directly into the lake beside it. These were practical boats, built to move cargo across Lake Ontario.

The vessels most often built in Oakville were schooners. Picture a low, narrow sailing ship with tall masts and long sails, designed to move quickly across the lake and still slip into small harbours. They were common on Lake Ontario because they carried a lot for their size and didn’t need large crews to handle them.

By the 1830s, ships built at Sixteen Mile Creek were showing up regularly in lake traffic. Oakville soon become famous around the Great Lakes for the construction of quality ships and schooners.

Around town, people talked about ships being built at the “Oakville shop.” It wasn’t a formal shipyard in the modern sense. It was simply a way of referring to vessels built here that were known to be solid working ships. They carried full loads, held up in rough weather, and came back season after season.

That kind of reliability mattered. Lake trade depended on timing, and a delayed or damaged ship could undo months of work.

Moving goods overland was slow and unreliable in the early years of settlement. Roads were often muddy, unfinished, or blocked altogether. Water was the fastest option available.

Sixteen Mile Creek connected inland farms to the lake with relatively little handling of cargo. The harbour itself was shallow and needed constant attention, but ships continued to use it because it gave them access to a steady supply of timber, grain, and goods.

Money was borrowed and work repeated to keep the harbour usable. That alone says how important this access was to the town’s economy.

With shipbuilding and loading concentrated along the water, early Oakville grew outward from the shoreline. Inns, shops, storage buildings, and workspaces clustered near the harbour because that’s where people needed to be.

Sailors looked for food and beds. Ships needed repairs and supplies. Cargo needed to stay close to the water. The daily rhythm of the town followed the arrival and departure of vessels.

For a time, shipbuilding set the pace for everything else.

Maintaining a working harbour took constant effort. Storms shifted sand and silt, trade rose and fell, and larger economic forces were felt quickly in a town tied closely to shipping.

Oakville had built skill and reputation along the water. It also depended heavily on conditions beyond its control.

That balance would shape what came next.

This piece draws on Oakville and the Sixteen: The History of an Ontario Port by Hazel C. Mathews, one of the most comprehensive early histories of the town.