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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 attempting to reconstruct the Curran family of Little Bay. This entry remains a work in progress. Some connections are reasonably certain while others remain speculative, and I welcome information from descendants who may be able to help fill in the gaps.Patrick Curran was born in Ireland in 1845. Around 1883 he arrived in Little Bay with a man named William Curran, who I suspect was his brother. Their movements before arriving in Newfoundland are somewhat unusual. ...

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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 ...

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Connors

The Connors family first appear in my sources for Little Bay in 1881. They were Roman Catholic and came to the mines from Sound Island. They remain in town until at least the early 1920s before appearing in Buchans. 1881 John Connors present (Lind ledger) 1882 John Connors at Little Bay Bight (Voter's List) 1889 John Connors at Little Bay Bight (Voter's List) Thomas Connors at North Side Little Bay (Voter's List) On April 10th a raffle took place at the home of Frank Connors on New Line ...

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Coleman

The Coleman family arrived in Little Bay at some point prior to 1882. I’d guess an arrival between 1878 and 1881 as they likely followed the influx of Newfoundlanders seeking work at the mines. There they would have received training in the industry from the Presbyterian German miners already present. The Coleman family appears to consist of a group of brothers traveling with their elderly widowed mother and their families. They were Roman Catholic members of Her Lady of Carmel Parish. Their wor ...