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Newfoundland and Nova Scotia
Historical and geographical information
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Dates
are in red.
Hyperlinks
to other pages are in dark
blue.
Headlines
of the history of the Newfoundland are in brown.
References
and citations are in turquoise.
Contextual
history is in purple.
This
webpage about the Newfoundland has the
following section headings:
- The Farndales of Newfoundland
- Newfoundland
- Corner Brook
- St John’s
- Halifax, Nova Scotia
- Links,
texts and books
The Farndales of Newfoundland
The Newfoundland Line are the
descendants of John Martin Farndale (FAR00613),
1886-1966 who emigrated to Newfoundland. See also the Newfoundland Farndales.
Raymond
WS Farndale (FAR00804), served in 59th
(Newfoundland) Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery.
They
lived at Corner Brook, St John’s, Toronto and Halifax.
Many of the Canadian immigrants docked in
Halifax on their journey west.
Nova
Scotia and Newfoundland
Newfoundland Nova
Scotia
Corner Brook
Corner
Brook is a city located on the west coast of the island
of Newfoundland in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
Located
on the Bay of Islands at the mouth of the Humber River, the city
is the second-largest population centre in the province
behind St. John's, and smallest of three cities behind St. John's
and Mount Pearl. As such, Corner Brook functions as a service centre
for western and northern Newfoundland. It is located on the same latitude
as Gaspé, Quebec, a city of similar size and
landscape on the other side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Corner Brook is
the most northern city in Atlantic Canada.
It is the
administrative headquarters of the Qalipu
Mi'kmaq First Nations band government. The Mi'kmaq
name for the nearby Humber River is "Maqtukwek"
1767
The area
was surveyed by Captain James Cook in
1767. The Captain James Cook Historic Site stands on Crow Hill
overlooking the city.
Nineteenth century
By the
middle of the nineteenth century the population of Corner Brook was less than
100, and the inhabitants were engaged in fishing and lumber work.
Corner
Brook is home to the Corner Brook Pulp & Paper Mill (owned by Kruger Inc.),
which is a major employer for the region.
The area
was originally four distinct communities, each with unique commercial
activities:
·
Curling, with its fishery;
·
Corner Brook West (also known as Humber West or
Westside) with its retail businesses;
·
Corner Brook East (also known as Humbermouth and the Heights) with its railway and
industrial operations; and
·
Townsite (known as Corner Brook), home to the
employees of the pulp and paper mill.
1948
Between
1948 and 1958, about 70 people from Latvia and Germany settled in Corner Brook.
They came as part of then Premier Joseph Smallwood's
New Industries program. They built and worked at North Star Cement and the
Atlantic Gypsum Plant.
1956
In 1956,
the four communities were amalgamated to form the present-day City of Corner
Brook.
Pulp and
paper industry, Corner Brook
St John’s
The St.
John's metropolitan area is the most populous census metropolitan
area in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
1500
St.
John's was used by fishermen setting up seasonal camps in the early 1500s.
Sebastian Cabot declared in a handwritten Latin text in his original 1545 map
that St. John's earned its name when he and his father, the Venetian explorer
John Cabot, in the service of England, became the first Europeans to sail into
the harbour, on the morning of 24 June 1494 (per British and French historians,
in 1497), the feast day of Saint John the Baptist. However, the locations of
Cabot's landfalls are disputed.
1519
The
earliest record of the location appears as São João on a Portuguese map by
Pedro Reinel in 1519.
1527
When the
English mariner John Rut visited St. John's in 1527, he found Norman, Breton and Portuguese ships in the harbour. On 3 August
1527, Rut wrote a letter to King Henry on the findings of his voyage to North
America; this was the first known letter sent from North America.
1540
A series
of expeditions to St. John's by Portuguese from the Azores took place in the
early 16th century, and by 1540, French, Spanish and Portuguese ships crossed
the Atlantic annually to fish the waters off the Avalon Peninsula. In the
Basque Country, it is a common belief the name of St. John's was given by
Basque fishermen because the bay of St. John's is very similar to the Bay of
Pasaia in the Basque Country, where one of the fishing towns is called St. John
(in Spanish, San Juan, and in Basque, Donibane).
1541
St. Jehan
is shown on Nicolas Desliens's world map of 1541, and
San Joham is found in João Freire's Atlas of 1546.
1583
On 5
August 1583, an English Sea Dog, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, claimed the area as
England's first overseas colony under Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I. There
was no permanent population, however, and Gilbert was lost at sea during his
return voyage, thereby ending any immediate plans for settlement.
1620
By 1620,
the fishermen of England's West Country controlled most of Newfoundland's east
coast.
1627
In 1627,
William Payne, called St. John's "the principal prime and chief lot in
all the whole country".
1630
Sometime
after 1630, the town of St. John's was established as a permanent community.
Before this, English fishermen were expressly forbidden by the English
government, at the urging of the West Country fishing industry, from
establishing permanent settlements along the English-controlled coast.
1665
The
town's first significant defences were likely erected due to commercial
interests, following the temporary seizure of St. John's by the Dutch admiral
Michiel de Ruyter in June 1665.
1673
The
inhabitants fended off a second Dutch attack in 1673, when it was defended by
Christopher Martin, an English merchant captain. Martin landed six cannons from
his vessel, the Elias Andrews, and constructed an earthen breastwork and
battery near Chain Rock commanding the Narrows leading into the harbour. With
only 23 men, the valiant Martin beat off an attack by three Dutch warships.
1675
The
population grew slowly in the 17th century. St. John's was Newfoundland's
largest settlement when English naval officers began to take censuses around
1675. The population grew in the summers with the arrival of migratory
fishermen.
1680
In 1680,
fishing ships mostly from South Devon set up fishing rooms at St. John's,
bringing hundreds of Irish men into the port to operate inshore fishing boats.
1689
The
English government planned to expand the fortifications of Fort William in
around 1689, but construction did not begin until after the French admiral
Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville captured and destroyed
the town in the Avalon Peninsula Campaign in 1696. When 1500 English
reinforcements arrived in late 1697, they found rubble where the town and
fortifications had stood
1705
The
French attacked St. John's again in 1705, the Siege of St. John's, and captured
it in 1708, the Battle of St. John's, devastating civilian structures with fire
on each instance.
The
harbour remained fortified through most of the 18th and 19th centuries.
1762
The final
battle of the Seven Years' War in North America (known as the French and Indian
War in the US) was fought in 1762, in St. John's.
Following
a surprise capture of the town by the French early in the year, the British
responded and, at the Battle of Signal Hill, the French surrendered St. John's
to British forces under the command of Colonel William Amherst.
1800
On 24
April 1800, the "United Irish Uprising" occurred when 19 Irish
soldiers who were part of the British garrison stationed in Newfoundland
mutinied. The mutineers, who were suspected to be members of the Society of
United Irishmen, fled to the countryside after the mutiny failed, and were
apprehended in a matter of weeks and court-martialled. Of the 17 mutineers
captured, 8 were executed, 4 were let go while 5 were sentenced to penal
transportation.
The 18th
century saw major changes in Newfoundland: population growth, beginnings of
government, establishment of churches, reinforcement of commercial ties with
North America and development of the seal, salmon and
Grand Banks fisheries. St. John's population grew slowly. Although it was
primarily a fishing station, it was also a garrison, a centre of government and
a commercial hub.
St.
John's served as a naval base during the American Revolutionary War and the War
of 1812.
1892
The Great
Fire of 1892 destroyed a significant portion of the city.
1901
Guglielmo
Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal in St. John's on 12
December 1901 from his wireless station in Poldhu,
Cornwall.
1919
St.
John's was the starting point for the first non-stop transatlantic aircraft
flight, by Alcock and Brown in a modified Vickers Vimy IV bomber, in June 1919,
departing from Lester's Field in St. John's and ending in a bog near Clifden,
Connemara, Ireland.
1939
During
the Second World War, the harbour supported Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy
ships that were engaged in anti-submarine warfare. It was the site of an
American Army Air Force base, Fort Pepperrell, that was established as part of
the "Lend-Lease" Destroyers for Bases Agreement between the United
Kingdom and United States. The base included several US-manned coast defence
guns, and a Canadian-manned battery of two Lend-Lease 10-inch M1888 guns was at
Fort Cape Spear.
1942
The
Knights of Columbus Hostel fire in December 1942 saw 99 military and civilian
lives lost.
1960
The military
base was transferred to Canadian control in 1960 and is now known as CFS St.
John's.
1990s
St.
John's, and the province as a whole, was gravely
affected in the 1990s by the collapse of the northern cod fishery, which had
been the driving force of the provincial economy for hundreds of years.
After a
decade of high unemployment rates and depopulation, the city's proximity to the
Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose oil fields led to an economic boom that
spurred population growth and commercial development. As a result, the St.
John's area now accounts for about half of the province's economic output.
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Halifax,
officially known as the Halifax Regional Municipality (“HRM”), is the
capital of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.
Coastal
areas of Nova Scotia in the region of Halifax were inhabited seasonally by Mi’kmaq
before the influx of Europeans.
1749
The first
permanent European settlement in the region was on the Halifax Peninsula. The
establishment of the Town of Halifax, named after the 2nd Earl of Halifax, in
1749 led to the colonial capital being transferred from Annapolis Royal.
The
establishment of Halifax marked the beginning of Father Le Loutre's
War. The war began when Edward Cornwallis arrived to establish Halifax with 13
transports and a sloop of war on June 21, 1749. By unilaterally establishing
Halifax, the British were violating earlier treaties with the Mi'kmaq
(1726), which were signed after Father Rale's War. Cornwallis brought along
1,176 settlers and their families. To guard against Mi'kmaq, Acadian and
French attacks on the new Protestant settlements, British fortifications were
erected in Halifax (Citadel Hill) (1749), Bedford (Fort Sackville) (1749),
Dartmouth (1750), and Lawrencetown (1754), all areas within the modern-day
Regional Municipality. St. Margaret's Bay was first settled by French-speaking
Foreign Protestants at French Village, Nova Scotia who migrated from Lunenburg,
Nova Scotia during the American Revolution.
1917
6 December
1917 saw one of the greatest disasters in Canadian history, when the SS
Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship carrying munitions, collided with the
Belgian Relief vessel SS Imo in "The Narrows" between upper Halifax
Harbour and Bedford Basin. The resulting explosion, the Halifax Explosion,
devastated the Richmond District in the North End of Halifax, killing
approximately 2,000 people and injuring nearly 9,000 others. The blast was the
largest artificial explosion before the development of nuclear weapons.
Significant aid came from Boston, strengthening the bond between the two
coastal cities.
Links, texts and books