by Elaine Peddle Spurrell
June 2025
Captain John Peddle, also known as ‘Sunflower John’ was born in February 1850 in Bishop’s Cove, Conception Bay to Caleb Peddle and Catherine Barrett. In the late 1860’s Caleb and Catherine moved with their family to Hodge’s Cove, Trinity Bay.
On December 27, 1874, John married Rosanna Drodge at the Congregational Church in Smith Sound, Random Island.
John was captain of the schooner, the Sunflower, built in Hodge’s Cove in 1881 by his twin brother, David. The area near Mud Gully in Hodge’s Cove, where the timber was cut for the schooner later became known as ‘Sunflower Droke’.
During a cod fishing voyage in July 1888, the Sunflower became grounded on a reef during a storm and sank off Kettle Point in Labrador. All 13 crew members survived. Catherine Dean of Southport, a young woman of 19 at the time, was the cook onboard the schooner. In 1958 she told of her harrowing experience to the Western Star. Click here to read her story – Struggle in 1888.