Posts - Page 2 of 15 - The History of Little Bay

Killed on the job

The town of Little Bay is planning a memorial plaque to honour those who lost their lives working Little Bay Mines. I’ve been asked to find the men killed there in the 19th century. I have two deaths that are proving difficult to name. I’m missing the first name for a Mr. Young from Bay Roberts and a man from Little Bay Islands has no name at all. I’ve had no luck matching their DODs to burial records or headstones (thanks go to Doyle Wells and The Rooms for helping!). My latest idea is finding ...

The Hiram Perry Jr.

A little steam tug called the Hiram Perry Junior played a significant role in the history of Newfoundland mining. It was certainly the most significant ship in the history of Little Bay. I’ll attempt to tell you its story here. I’ve yet to find a picture of the Hiram Perry so the pictures included here are only of similarly designed ships to give you a sense of a craft that ventured the bays of Northern Newfoundland in the late 19th century.Records of the Hiram Perry in Newfoundland I've found o ...

The fire of 1904

If you’ve been following my work you’ll know I’ve been trying to separate two fires which impacted Little Bay in 1903 and 1904. I posted a piece with my findings on the 1903 fire. In this piece I’ll attempt to sort out the references to the 1904 fire. I don’t know if anyone else is as concerned about properly sorting out these two events as I am but in case anyone follows after my work they’ll see how I came to my conclusions. Unfortunately, I lack the first hand accounts of this blaze that I ha ...

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Loader

Spelling variants found: Loader, Loder, Lowder, Loather, Loathers, Louther, LouthersMy first reference to the Loader family in Little Bay appears on the 1882 electoral list for the region. It has recently been suggested that voters had to have lived in a place for two years before registering to vote there. If that is the case it moves the earliest date for this family in town back to 1880. This would correspond with the sale of the mine by the Germans and lines up nicely with references to a fl ...

Lighthouse keeper Edward Paddock

I’ve been exploring the possibility that Little Bay has a missing lighthouse. It’s a dubious proposition but not without some circumstantial evidence. It concerns a man named Edward John Paddock.Edward was born at Ward’s Harbour on August 12th 1854 to parents John Paddock and Elizabeth (Haggett) Paddock. According to a MyHeritage page ran by Christopher Paddock he is next found operating a lighthouse at Little Bay Islands in 1875. I have not been able to confirm this with any original sources ne ...

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1890 petition for public wharf signatures

This is a pretty sweet find. When I'm working on a family I first build a timeline of the references that place them in town. It's an attempt to pinpoint when someone was there before framing their presence in its larger context. Getting a list of names with a specific date like this is a huge help as you can imagine. I'm sharing because I know a lot of you follow my research for genealogical purposes. Below is my transcription of the roughly 100 signatures found on a petition for the public wh ...

Eagen

The Eagen family was in Little Bay by 1882 and remained in town until at least 1904. John and Patrick Eagen worked as miners. John has a series of run-ins with the law due to public drinking. His wife was Ann. However, it is Patrick’s wife Catherine who presents us with the most interesting character from this clan. Foremost because she is one of the few examples I’ve found of female employment.While her husband worked underground at the Little Bay mine she was working as Little Bay's agent for ...

The El Dorado Trail Tour

As you may know the town of Little Bay has been working tirelessly for the past year to share its history with you. I hope you’ll explore the town's new heritage hiking trail - the El Dorado and support Little Bay by celebrating their first Heritage Day on August 12th.I can't take any credit for organizing events or building the hiking trail. Little Bay's Trail Committee and Heritage Society deserves much praise for all of that so make sure to give them the thanks and respect and everything. I h ...

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The fire of 1903

*Pictures included are: town before fire showing where it started (behind brown building above ridge on right), Rev. John J. Lynch, Rev. Arthur Pittman, Picture of town after fire for comparison.Sometimes I get lucky and find multiple firsthand accounts of an incident. In this case Rev. Arthur Pittman wrote of his experience in Diocesan Magazine and Rev. John J. Lynch gave an interview to the Evening Telegram. Obviously more would be better but just having a couple of eyewitnesses clears our vie ...

Education in Little Bay

To map out the education system in Little Bay we must first start, as we often do with Betts Cove. The mine at Betts Cove officially opened in 1875. However, census data from 1874 gives us a glimpse of the town just before that. It had a starting population of 26 people and of those 15 were under the age of 20. This suggests the need for a school. The total population number for Newfoundland in 1874 was 158958. The number of people who could read and write was 34005. This allows us to produce a ...

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