Pay Day at the mine. Likely taken around 1886. My guess on the photographer is Otis Boyden. The house in the background was the home of the Lind family.

Mine Manager Andrew Whyte

I am going to tell you about Andrew Whyte, Little Bay’s third mine manager. I’d like to put his position in its proper context first so let's explore the mine manager job itself.Little Bay was a company town. It had a company store and the miners were paid in company script. This was seen by those in charge as a compassionate form of capitalism. A worker could move to town and there get a job and a home. Their children would get an education and as long as the industry kept running they would ev ...

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McGrath

The tailor Richard J. McGrath arrived in Little Bay from St. John’s in 1886. His business’s first location in the mining town was found above the Redden Brother’s shop. He wasn’t satisfied with renting his workspace and had acquired his own location by 1888. It was located “on the ridge” in the Bight and double in function as his family’s dwelling. He employed several “tailoresses” and acted as an agent for Singer Sowing Machines. His tailor and outfitter shop offered “a full line of cloths, twe ...

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Selby Dow

Selby Allan Dow (1844-1893) Selby Dow (sometimes recorded as Dawe) was born in 1844 at Harbour Grace. He was the son of a doctor and likely educated as he was working as a bookkeeper between 1864 and 1871. He was first employed by the Mining Company in Little Bay as a bookkeeper or accountant. I’m not sure when he first arrives in Little Bay but he was reported to have worked the accountant job for a number of years and it appears that he lost his position with the mine by early 1886. His subse ...

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Little Bay Mine cave-in

I was recently asked to put together signage for a Little Bay walking trail. Unsurprisingly, one of those signs was requested to cover the cave-in. If you’ve ever been to Little Bay you know the town hosts a sizeable hole in the ground from a fairly massive mine collapse. I remember asking my grandmother about it as a child and I remembered her saying it happened before her time. This was backed up during my own investigation into the late 19th century mining operations. Mineral reports on the a ...

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The rum-runners McLean: a Christmas story

“Oh Wells, you are a hard man! The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have their nests, but you hath not a friend anywhere. Wells, your name is a terror to me.” - Mary McLeanIn tonight’s tale I will tell you about the exploits of Michael and Mary McLean - the husband and wife bootlegging team who ran the rum trade in Little Bay during the 1880s. We will consider their operation as it relates to changes in the Christmas season in Little Bay over the course of the late 19th century. We’ll ...

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Curran

Patrick Curran (1845-1930)I am trying to flush out the Curran family. This one was challenging. The references were few and far between and what I have I really had to dig for. I have a lot figured out but there are still some holes in this story. I’m posting what I have mostly as a call for help. I can tell you that Patrick Curran was born in Ireland in 1845 and arrived in Little Bay in 1883. He was traveling with William Curran. I suspect this is his brother. Unusually, they seem to have come ...

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Sutton

Michael J. Sutton (1861-1918)Constable Michael Sutton was 25 years old when he arrived in Little Bay. The Irish born policeman had been ordered to the unofficial capitol of the northern mining region by Inspector Fawcett on December 1st 1886. He traveled by steamship from St. John’s and disembarked the SS Plover at Little Bay a week later. He reported to Sergeant Thomas Wells on the night of December 8th at roughly 10pm.The next morning on December 9th he joined Constable Meany for street duties ...

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Sculley

Someone asked me to compile my references for the last name Sully but when I looked into it I only had one reference to a Mr. W.T. Sully in the RC school reports. I found a handful of references to a Mr. W.T. Sculley in the newspapers and realized that was his actual last name. William Walsh (1880-1948) had mentioned being educated at Little Bay by Dr. Scully. That title made more sense once I found reference to a medical student named W.T. Sculley travelling from St. John’s to New York in 1894 ...

Taverner

Captain Joseph Henry Taverner (1845-1920) arrived in Little Bay in 1883 with his new wife Mary Elizabeth. They’d travelled by steamer from Twillingate where they had been married the pervious year. J.H. Taverner was originally from Trinity Bay where his family were longstanding landowners. I suspect the move to Little Bay was motivated to avoid debt collectors as he owed money to several people and by 1885 was declared insolvent. This didn’t seem to slow him down. In 1888 he obtained a well ma ...

Patrick and Katherine (Foran) Dunphy

Dunphy

The Dunphy family first appears in my Little Bay records in 1884. They are Roman Catholic and seem to have come from the Avalon. They relocate to Nova Scotia in the mid 1890s likely for mining work at Glace Bay before finally ending up in the United States. The image is of Patrick and Katherine Dunphy and was submitted by Kathie Wager who is working on connections between the Sinnott, Foran, and Dunphy families. My Little Bay references to the Dunphy family are listed below with one variant spel ...