The founding of the St. Mary’s Boat Club is a bit difficult to trace. One Halifax Advisory Committee report claims that the St. Mary's Amateur Athletic and Aquatics Club was founded in 1874 by the St. Mary's Young Men's Temperance Abstinence and Benevolence Society. They were located on the Halifax Harbour but relocated to the Northwest Arm in 1900. Their new clubhouse was erected there in 1905 and composites show the club still using the name St. Mary's A.A. & A.C. in 1908. The club went through a variety of name associations, including St. Mary’s Aquatic Club, St. Mary’s Rowing Club, St. Mary’s Recreation Club and St. Mary’s Amateur Aquatic Association before settling on St. Mary's Boat Club sometime in the 1920s. St. Mary’s was the lone Halifax club in the original Maritime Division, entering CCA in 1956 (application submitted by William Patterson on their behalf) to help form a three-club Maritime Division. Leaving again in 1960 (one source says 1958), St. Mary's still sent representatives to the 1963 Dominion Championship in Ottawa (according to the Montreal Gazette). Today, St. Mary's uses the same facilities originally occupied in 1919 and rent space to the Halifax Rowing Club.