Consider this is an official request from Little Bay, Newfoundland to Bayonne, New Jersey to assist with rediscovering an old connection between the two communities. It concerns 30 men from Bayonne who lived in Newfoundland in the mid to late 1880s.

While working on my piece about Little Bay’s driver, Walter Rollings, I tracked him to Bayonne. That was the first time I had encountered Bayonne in my work. I shared my article on Mr. Rollings to New Jersey’s genealogical pages hoping it would find its way to his descendants. This caught the attention of a New Jersey based podcast called Heritage Hunters. They asked me on to talk about my work.

I was aided in preparing for that interview by a coincidence while working on an unrelated piece. I stumbled on a second reference to Bayonne completely by accident. This was right after finding the first. This was odd. An article from the Daily News dated May 15th 1955 gave job titles and origins for some of Little Bay’s prominent late 19th century figures. This random find put Walter Rollings’ choice of migration destination in some context.

This discovery concerned a man named William Melephant. Melephant was in charge of the Smelting Department of Little Bay Mines when they were upgraded in 1887. The article mentioned that he had 30 men from Bayonne working under him. This was wild! However, I don’t believe Mr. Melephant was himself from New Jersey. I think he was sent to Little Bay from Swansea in Wales.

At that time the mine was owned by an English firm called “Matheson & Company” and this provided another link to New Jersey. I found reference to a set of minutes held by the discretion of “Matheson & Company” that refer to the records of the “New Jersey Metal Refining Works Ltd.” from 1892 to 1897. Those are currently held by Cambridge University. The relevant part is that those volumes are described as having “The New Jersey Extraction Works” on the spine. This popped out at me as I had seen that name before. It was in an article from the Evening Telegram, July 30th, 1887. That was the same newspaper article which told of the upgrading of Little Bay’s smelters. At the time of that work a man named Mr. Cardwell of “The New Jersey Extraction Works” was present. A little digging in Newfoundland newspapers gave up his travels and provided a first name. It was John but John Cardwell didn’t stay in Newfoundland very long. He was on the island only briefly before leaving for New York. It’s unclear if the men working under Melephant were connected to Cardwell but it’s another promising New Jersey lead just the same. Their exact arrival is difficult to pin down, however, a Twillingate Sun article from November 13th 1886 states “three practial operatives, in addition to those previously there, arrived from New York by last steamer”

There’s still a lot to figure out here but the picture is getting clearer. It looks like Matheson owned Little Bay Mines while simultaneously having an invested interest in refinement in New Jersey. This gave them access to the trained men necessary for upgrading the Little Bay smelters back in 1887. The 1955 Daily News article gives the impression that they lived there so I’d guess they stayed for a couple of years at least. Likely they trained locals to take over their tasks before returning home to New Jersey. I don’t know when they departed Newfoundland exactly. When those men returned home a connection was formed between Bayonne and Little Bay. Later, when mining work slowed down perhaps some, like our Walter Rollings, moved to Bayonne because friendships down there had been forged already back in Newfoundland.

Little Bay Mines’ documents were largely destroyed by fire. However, there’s no reason to expect similar issues on the New Jersey side. It’s my hope that researchers familiar with Bayonne in the 1880s could locate the employee documents for “The New Jersey Extraction Works” or some other unexpected resource. It would be wonderful if the town’s connection to New Jersey was better understood. I’d love to put names to these 30 men from Bayonne who lived and worked in Little Bay, Newfoundland. Little Bay is currently working to develop its heritage with a walking trail. It would be awesome to honour these men from Bayonne with a plaque or heritage sign. I hope I can find them and welcome your help.

Of the 30 men I have only managed to name a couple of them – potentially… In the 1886 diaries of Thomas Wells he refers to H. B. Hansen of the Smelting Works. I expect he was of some rank to be so noted. A little Googling turned up an American named Harry B. Hansen connected to mining at the same time. That could be our guy but it’s not nearly enough info to be sure. The other possible name is Goudie. Again in 1886 as recorded by Sergeant Wells a man named Joseph Goudie was injured while at work smelting. I’d originally dismissed him as from Bayonne as the name Goudie is a known name from this period in Newfoundland. However, Sheldon Goudie in researching this family has not been able to tie this line of Goudies with the local lot. According to him Joseph Goudie was there with his brother John. There 1880 census for New Jersey shows quite a number of people born in Newfoundland so I have to entertain the possibility that this family moved south before moving back north. On that note Little Bay’s priest had a brother in Bayonne when he died in 1899.

So perhaps we have names for 3 of the 30. But even if so the other 27 remain elusive and may be impossible to find as they were likely working class labourers. However, it remains possible that they were listed together somewhere for their trip to Newfoundland. I’m hoping this reaches someone with the know-how to find such a document in Bayonne.

If you’re a New Jersey based researcher with knowledge of 1880s Bayonne consider this a call to arms!

The best way to follow my work is on the Facebook page – here

The episode of Heritage Hunters I’m on is posted below!