NL GenWebWest Coast Region ~ Bay St. George DistrictForrest's List 1858Bay St. GeorgeNOTES FROM THE PROVINCIAL ARCHIVES David Davis, Provincial Archivist A Document from St. George's Bay, 1858 This document appeared in the Appendix to the Journal of the House of Assembly for 1858. It was written by Henry H. Forrest a merchant of St. George's to the Governor Sir Alexander Bannerman in St. John's in reply to a dispatch from the Governor which was in response to Forrest's appeal for relief for the distressed people of St. George's. St. George's in the 1850's was still a no-man's land on the French treaty shore Cape Ray to Point Riche), patrolled by warships of England and France. What little civil administration it possessed it owed to the perseverance of the Newfoundland Government in extending its control over the area. With the uncertainty of ownership and/or administration of St. George's, many people living there wondered about their future. Especially concerned were merchants such as Forrest who could lose their property if France wanted English property cleared from the Treaty shore. However, the main value of this document is the list of families living in St. George's it contains. As with most lists of this kind it registers only the names of head of households with the number of persons in that household. At the same time, it gives a researcher information about people from the West Coast of Newfoundland for a period when very little is available from other sources. Despite all these problems, the document ends with an endorsement of the future of life in St. George's and the determination to stay there in spite of the hardships. The document which follows has been edited to conserve space and remove extraneous material. Where the symbols (*****) occur across a page, this indicates that a paragraph or paragraphs have been deleted. H. H. Forrest, St. George's to Sir Alexander Bannerman, October 28, 1858 * * * * * * * * To your Excellency's enquiry for the names of the individuals or companies who would discontinue their autumnal credits, I beg leave to name Messrs. Samuel McKay, Joseph Legrandais, John Thomas, Franncis Halbot, John Messervey and Sons, Ernest L. Romain, and Constant Garnier; besides many of the settlers, who, possessing the means to engage and profitably to employ parties assured me that the dread of the loss of the spring and summer fisheries, as threatened by French interference and disallowance, reluctantly compelled them to suspend their autumnal credits. I beg also to observe that the credit system here is dependent solely on the strict honesty of the poor fisherman, and on the certainty of the next ensuring autumn and winter. The French claim, therefore, of exclusive right to those fisheries by their recent notice, along oblige the traders here to adopt the alternative of no credit, as a matter of self protection, until the question of a mutual right of fishery be settled by the Government of England and France * * * * * * * * * Your Excellency desires, thirdly, the names of the six hundred people to whom allusion is made in my letter of 18th August last; a description of their localities an the distance their residences are from the sea. I beg to refer your Excellency to an appended list underneath, of about four hundred and forty-four persons. Of forty families and upwards swelling the list, I am assured, by a letter of this date from the Rev. A. Belanger, that "many are already without any means of subsistence, and the others will very soon be short of food." Their localities generally range along the borders of the Bay of St. George and along the borders of the Harbor, while their residences rarely are one hundred yards from the sea. * * * * * * * * * Your Excellency graciously desires my opinion as to the settlement of St. George's Bay, and whether, I think it is a settlement of importance to British fisherman, The settlement of St. George's Bay I humbly conceive is important, from its rapidly encreasing population; - from the great accumulation of personal property, and the greatly enhanced value of real estate within the last thirty years-from its vast resources in herring, and more partial resources in salmon; and from its proximity to the Gulph and Labrador cod-fishery. As a place of refuge for distressed shipping homeward bound from the neighboring shores of Canada and New Brunswick, it is of invaluable importance, as it has, within my experience, afforded shelter, and I may add, given life, to many shipwrecked seaman. The Bay of St. George, freed from French interference, and wholly British, from its commanding position in the Gulph of St. Lawrence, with governmental support to encourage it, would, in my humble estimation, spring into new life, into wealth, and finally into acknowledged importance. The people of Bay St. George are all warmly attached to the place. The Idea of removal, it appears to me, is intolerable to them. Starvation alone, consequent on the loss of their fisheries, would or could reconcile them to an abandonment of their much cherished homes. * * * * * * * * H. H. FORREST Bay St. George, Newfoundland 28th October, 1858
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Bay St. George District
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