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The completion of a new South Breakwater in 1874 on the south side of the River Dee, in the parish of Nigg, facing Aberdeen across the bay, was the first stage in the rise to prosperity of the small fishing village of Torry. Built of concrete blocks and extending 1000 feet seawards and close to the Girdleness Lighthouse, Torry harbour provided an ideal safe haven for fishermen, particularly the new trawlers, which began fishing from there in the 1870s.
The arrival of the first steam trawler in Torry, The Toiler, in 1882 signalled the end for the small line-fisherman and his sailing yawl. The line and herring fishermen of Torry and Footdee argued forcefully against the threat this new mode of fishing presented to their livelihoods and a Commission was set up in 1883 to consider their complaints, but the writing was on the wall and the Commission found in favour of trawl fishing.
The Christies, along with the Woods and many of the other fishing families from the fishing communities south of Aberdeen, moved up the coast to Torry. So many fisherfolk migrated to Torry during this time eager to take advantage of the new distant-water opportunities offered by steam that between 1881 and 1901, the population of Torry rose from 1117 to over 9300. It was due to the influx of these predominantly Episcopalian fishing families to Torry that St Peter's Scottish Episcopal Church was built in 1893.
John Christie - son of Andrew Christie sen., and Janet Wood, born in Skateraw in 1870 - was one of the new breed of steam trawlermen. In 1892 he married Helen Wood (born in 1874) at St Nicholas Church, Torry, Aberdeen. Family tradition has it that on her wedding day, Helen Wood was waiting for the horse and cart to take her to the church at her brother George's house in Baker Street, Torry, but the transport went instead to Baker Street in Aberdeen, thus making her late for her wedding. The story goes that because of the mix-up they renamed Baker Street, Torry to Wood St
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