Posts - Page 13 of 15 - The History of Little Bay

Dr. Louis Joseph

I should warn you that this starts with a grave. It’s only fitting, it’s a tragic story after all. There is a modest cemetery in The Bight where I’d walk, reading the names on the aging gravestones. That’s all they were to me then, just names. This was before the work began, before I knew the people behind those names, before I knew this story. Joseph stood out to me. It was an odd surname for Little Bay. I’d never heard of any Jospehs’ in town. I asked around but no one could tell me who they ...

Pittman, Thompson and Lamb

I'm building timelines to cover the lives of Little Bay's prominent historical figures in a series of Facebook notes. It's an attempt to keep track of some of my sources both publicly and chronologically while also potentially drawing the attention of other researchers with more information, corrections, or pictures. Maybe discussion will help me fill in some of the blanks. Plus if you're interested in one family I'm working on but not the whole project it'll give something more specific to foll ...

Admiral Kennedy’s Visit

The following is an excerpt from Admiral Kennedy's 1885 text "Sport, Travel, and Adventure in Newfoundland and the West Indies" in which he recounts his visit to Little Bay in 1881. Soon after we had anchored, the " oldest in- habitant" came on board to see me. I gave him a good stiff glass of old Scotch whisky, which loosened his tongue. "Them's fine heads," said he, looking at my caribou heads in the cabin; " but Lor', sir, they're nothing to some I shot when I first came here." Whereupon h ...

Her Lady of Carmel Parish

https://youtu.be/vTiqLNid-YYBuildings are strange and social things. Churches have especially complicated relationships. Little Bay’s Catholic church and its first priest are entwined. Their relationship exemplifies this project as a whole. I uncovered this story slowly, piecing it together from forgotten documents and half remembered tales, from once living people and events nearly lost to time, from uploaded images and unexpected archives. Little Bay is history forgotten. This is a ghost story ...

The Little Bay Heroine

https://youtu.be/Jrp__Ihhx0Q

Otis Boyden

The story of Little Bay’s first photographer is incomplete. It’s an unfinished puzzle which hints at a fascinating whole if it could only be put together. The pieces I’ve assembled, however, resist joining neatly. The first piece was the name Otis Boyden. I found him listed in the Supreme Court Documents as Little Bay’s photographer. His name led me to an online blog about the historic photography of the Boyden family, tracing its lineage back to Elijah Boyden. Elijah’s brother’s name was Otis ...

A Tinsmith’s Tale

The first tinsmith in Little Bay was a man named Robert Malcolm. He is first documented in the town in 1882. He was married to Catherine Morisey and the couple had four children. In the late 1880s Little Bay was experiencing something referred to as the “tennis fires” which I think may have been an arson war. The town had two rival upper classes. They appear to have divided over the issue of alcohol. Eventually, the two groups were split over other cultural activities. One can be seen associat ...

Mine Manager E.C. Wallace

Little Bay was a prosperous and cosmopolitan town in the 19th century. It was unusual for its time and place. However, while there was variety in its resident’s nationalities and a mixture of languages could be heard spoken on its streets, the population was pulled from the world’s colonial powers. Little Bay’s story is part of the tale of colonialism and its necessary to understand it in that context. The story of mine manager Wallace will make that clear.After the departure of the baron much o ...

Big Dan Courtney

Daniel “Big Dan” Courtney was the proprietor of the Little Bay Hotel. He came to Little Bay from Halifax and first appears in my sources in May of 1885. Innkeepers of the time were big men. They had to be. Big Dan was the exception. He wasn’t a large man yet his nickname was said without irony. He was tough. He and his wife ran the Little Bay Hotel together. It consisted of a bar, a saloon, and the guest's rooms. The Courtneys ran a tight ship and kept the beds clean. Their business had a good ...

Baron Franz von Ellershausen

The Baron drew me in. I’d started researching my mother’s hometown of Little Bay while working on her genealogy. Growing up I’d often heard it said there that the town had once been one of the biggest on the island but the true scale of the history was jaw-dropping. I became enthralled by it but it was the Baron Franz von Ellershausen who really floored me. The town’s founder was a German Baron. They spoke German in this 19th century Newfoundland mining town! I was hooked. The story starts wit ...

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