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The largest wooden ship to sail over the highest tides in the world was the William D. Lawrence. In 1874, the ship was one of the biggest in the world when the ship was launched from W.D. Lawrence’s shipyard in Maitland. The vessel remains the largest wooden ship ever built in Canada. W. D. had succeeded in making his mark in shipbuilding history. The William D. Lawrence represents the pinnacle of W.D.’s career as a marine architect, businessman, and politician. At the time, Canada was the fifth leading ship-owning nation of the world,and almost half of these vessels were owned in Nova Scotia. Renown historian Frederick Wallace writes, “It was a memorable event in Canadian ship-building annals when his big ship took the water, and had it been elsewhere but in a quiet little Nova Scotia town on the banks of the Shubenacadie River, there would have been a great furor, and Lawrence’s genius and skill would have been proclaimed to the four corners of the earth.” This final and grandest vessel was launched on October 27, 1874. Over 4000 people from around the world came to watch the launch and celebrate the vessel, a marvel of marine architecture and business. Literary author and historian Archie MacMechan writes, “The designing, building and operating of the Great Ship by William Lawrence of Maitland must be reckoned as the most impressive single chapter in the long and splendid story of wooden ships in Nova Scotia.” W.D. also became a celebrated political figure in Nova Scotia. At the time, Nova Scotia was an independent colony, separate from Canada. Along with another politician of Hants County, Joseph Howe, W.D. was elected to political office to both maintain Nova Scotia’s independence and to keep the colony out of Canada. Eventually in 1967, Lawrence, Howe and the people of Nova Scotia were not consulted and Nova Scotia lost its independence by joining Canada. W.D. Lawrence built the largest vessel ever built in Canada, in part, as a symbol of Nova Scotia’s power and independence. Almost a century after the launch of the great ship, W.D. would eventually be commemorated by the Canadian Government on several occasions. On the first occasion, the Canadian Government built a monument to him (1965), then Canada Post put an image of the vessel on a postage stamp (1975); and later the Canadian Mint put an image of the vessel on a twenty dollar coin (2002). The Province of Nova Scotia made W.D. Lawrence’s home into a museum (1967) and every year celebrates the launch day of this great ship. In the provincial capital Halifax, directly opposite the statue of Joseph Howe, the Bank of Nova Scotia commemorated the William D. Lawrence by putting above the entrance to the bank a stone carving of the vessel (1930).