INTRODUCTION
For several decades the inner reaches of South West Arm had seen people who visited the various harbours and coves before permanent settlement took place. It is generally accepted by amateur researchers that there was no permanent settlement in these inlets before the 1850s and 1860s, though the outer communities of Heart’s Ease Beach, Southport and Gooseberry Cove had been settled earlier.
In his Internet document A Brief History of Long Beach in the Southwest Arm of Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, Les Vey has the following paragraph:
The entry in the diary for Wednesday, June 6 of the year 1767, stated, “At noon, David Kedman came down from Long Beach with 54 baskets of lance, baited all our boats, and went out immediately.”
Referenced were employees of the Lester firm of Trinity who had been coming to Long Beach to catch caplin for bait.
In the main, however, settlement of the coves and harbours in the inner South West Arm was due to two main factors:
1. the abundance of forested areas in this new region;
2. the ready availability of land on which to establish new homesteads
Many of the people who settled in our immediate area have their roots in communities along the northern side of Conception Bay and the south side of Trinity Bay.
Identifying the community where people were born sometimes presented a quandary, as in situations where families were not permanently settled.
The years given as when the firstborn of a family line does not suggest that that is the year the family settled in that community. Indeed, it was probably several years earlier that the family settled there.
The write-ups of these communities are decidedly brief.
HISTORIES
- Batt’s Cove
- Butter Cove
- Caplin Cove
- Clay Pits
- Elias’
- Garrett’s Cove
- George’s Cove
- Gooseberry Cove
- Hatchet Cove
- Heart’s Ease Beach
- Hillview
- Hodge’s Cove
- House Cove
- Island Cove
- Ivany’s Cove
- Little Harbour
- Little Heart’s Ease & Surrounding
- Long Beach
- Long Island
- Loreburn
- North West Brook
- Queen’s Cove
- Southport
- St. Jones Within
- St. Jones Without
- Thomas’