'Where in the World' did they go??........

Prepared by Randell Mercer, Blog Administrator
April 19, 2018

Upper Island Cove was clearly established as a fishing community by 1805. There is some evidence suggesting rudiments of a community dating as far back as 100 years earlier, functioning primarily as a fishing outport in the British Colony of Newfoundland.  A Decks Awash article, published in 1989, reported that

“Landowners in the 1805 Plantation Book and other Colonial Office records included: at Spoon Cove, Michael Power and Nicholas Dobbin, and at Upper Island Cove, William Sharpe, Joseph Drover, John Young, William Baggs, James Byrne, William Drover, Francis Jones, Henry and John Crane, Joseph, Jonathan and Robert Hussey, Thomas Mercer, Elizabeth Lynch, William Jones, Henry Bishop, James Mercer, John Lundrigan, William Peddle, John Coombs and Philip Vokey. By 1805, 27 people owned land in Upper Island Cove, and most had title back to the 1760s or 1770s.” 

The 1805 Plantation Report indicates that there were 23 Plantations owned and utilized at Upper Island Cove, with a total of 55 houses present at that time. It provides a listing of the Plantations with some details pertaining to owners, location and structures existing on each property.  This is one of the earliest official documents recording the ownership of properties and the composition of the citizenry of Upper Island Cove.

In 2007, I launched a website “Upper Island Cove Family Roots”. As a starting point, I began with the names of the landowners listed in the 1805 Plantation Book. Eleven (11) years later there are now more than 17,000 names recorded in this website with various degree of ancestry connecting to this early group of Upper Island Covers.

Many descendants of these early settlers can be found there today, but over the past 200 years many offspring relocated to other places, not only throughout the province of Newfoundland & Labrador and Canada, but to various countries across the globe.

In my research of families with origins from Upper Island Cove, one of the most enjoyable outcomes is discovering where various family members have ended up, and how much their offspring appreciate delving into their ancestral roots which originate from this ‘centuries old fishing community’ on the eastern edge of an island off the northeast coast of North America.

But Where in the World?   did they go??........

In the early years, primarily due fishing patterns along the northeast coastline of the Island and involvement in the Labrador fishery, some Upper Island Cove are recorded among the earliest settlers of other Newfoundland & Labrador communities.

Hodge's Cove is a fishing settlement situated in a small cove on the south side of the Southwest Arm, Trinity Bay, southwest of Clarenville.  According to oral history related by Rebecca Drover (Newfoundland Historical Society: Hodge's Cove), Hodge's Cove was known to have been seasonally visited by fishermen and their families from Ireland Cove (or Island Cove, probably Upper Island Cove), Conception Bay.  Two fishermen, both of whom were named James Drover (the youngest named ``Fiddler Jim'' to distinguish one from the other), erected houses at the foot of a pond which was then reputedly deep enough to hold a schooner.

According to Drover, these fishermen only wintered once in the cove, returning in the following fall to their home in Conception Bay. Their first winter in Hodge's Cove had been quite tragic: according to Drover two children had died. “They made coffins for them and put them under a boat bottom up and in the spring when the ice cleared out of Random Sound they took them to Fox Harbour [Southport], ... and there they buried them.''  Upon their return from Hodge's Cove they solicited advice from the minister in their home community about the wisdom of returning to this cove. The Drovers were told to "dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed.''  They obtained supplies from Harbour Grace and returned to Southwest Arm.

Pine's Cove or Point's Cove, Straits of Belle Isle, NL is a small fishing village located about 8 miles from Flower's Cove, NL. There were seven(7) settlers reported at Pine's Cove in 1874.  The Newfoundland McAlpine's 1898 Directory for St. Barbe District  lists eight(8) fishermen residing in the community of Pine's Cove, four(4) of whom were formerly of Upper Island Cove – Arch and George Crane, and George and Richard Young.

Port Albert, Notre Dame Bay, NL.  In October 1883, Thomas Elliot from Musgrave Harbour, being a fisherman who owned a schooner and fished on the Labrador, and Musgrave Harbour not being a harbour for schooners was in search of a suitable a harbour he arrived Port Albert, then Little Beaver Cove.  There he built a log cabin, his family becoming the first settlers.

In 1893, Ambrose Mercer from Upper Island Cove, who had met Tom Elliott on the Labrador decided to move with him to Port Albert. Tom, after coming home from the Labrador sailed to Upper Island Cove in his schooner and brought Ambrose Mercer, his wife and children to live here. They brought his house down in sheets on the deck of the schooner. Elizabeth (Ambrose's wife) was a Crane from Upper Island Cove.  In 1903 Nathaniel Crane, Elizabeth’s brother, also relocated there from Upper Island Cove.  Ambrose Mercer’s sister, Mary Anne was married to Nathaniel Crane.

Late in the 1900 century, there was the attraction of farming opportunities within the Province that attracted some others Upper Island Covers to relocate.

Blaketown.   In 1887 the land along the west side of Dildo Pond, the Dildo Agricultural Road is surveyed, divided into seventy-five lots and designated as an Agricultural District by the Newfoundland government. By the end of 1888, thirty-two families relocated to this new farming settlement. Twenty came from Upper Island Cove, with the remainder from Bishop's Cove, Bay Roberts and Spaniard's Bay. The Upper Island Covers included John Drover & Mary Griffin, William Jones & Elizabeth Jane Osborne, Thomas Lundrigan, George Lynch, Nathaniel Mercer & Emma, Eliol Mercer & Julia Ann, Elijah Mercer & Frances, Elijah Mercer & Olivia Coish, James Mercer & Fanny Coombs, John Osbourne & Mary Ann Sharpe and a (unidentified) Sharpe.

Paradise.   The Encyclopedia of Newfoundland & Labrador informs us that the communities of St. Thomas (first part to have been settled at Horse Cove, near St. Phillips) and Paradise grew up along a road between St. Phillips and Topsail.  Now amalgamated, the Town of Paradise stretches from St. Thomas along the Horse Cove Line to Topsail Road. The opening up of the Paradise area was initiated by Governor Thomas Cochrane (1825-34), who believed that a road between St. John's and Topsail  would allow residents of the south side of Conception Bay more easily to take their fresh produce to St. John's.

Beginning in the spring of 1898, several Upper Island Cove families who had earlier attempted to settle in St. John's, moved to the Horse Cove Line, attracted by the large amount of spruce, fir and birch in the area. These included the families of Ambrose Janes, William Coombs, Bertram Janes and John Lynch each took a plot of Crown land along the narrow foot-path, which roughly followed what was later known as Paradise Road.

There are a number of other locations, that I am aware of from my own research, where Upper Island Covers from past centuries relocated. Over time we plan to compile additional details.

Within the Province:
Bell Island (Various)
Fleur de Lye (Mary Drover - b. 1846)
Grand Falls-Winsor (Austin Mercer - b. 1866)
Harbour Round (James Drover - b. 1834)
Highlands (Mary Ann Sharpe-Quilty - b. 1856)
Whitbourne (Various)

Within Canada:
Ontario (Various)
Montreal, Quebec (Leander Jones - b. 1870)
Cape Breton, NS (Various)
Northern Saskatchewan (Thomas George Lundrigan - b. 1888)
British Columbia (Lundrigan)

Outside Canada:
Lynn, Mass. USA:
  • Archibald Lundrigan & Patience Jones
  • Simeon Bishop & Martha Gosse
  • Joseph Bishop
  • Leander Mercer & Priscilla Drover. Leander and family later returned to NL
Saugus, Mass. USA:
  • Fenwick Mercer & Isabella Jones
  • George F. Bishop & Mary Hiscock
Boston, Mass. USA:
  • William Henry Crane (b. 1847) arrived at Boston in 1894. In 1896, he was joined by his wife Elizabeth Jane Hussey and their 5 children, Annie, Mary Ann, William Henry Jr., Elizabeth Julia and Etta May, all born at Upper Island Cove, NL. In 1923, this family resided at 9 Beckler Ave., South Boston, Massachusetts.
New Zealand:
  • George John Clarke (b. 1875)

If you have some information relating to any of the above, or any other locations, it would be appreciated.

Randell Mercer   rmercer.uicfamilyroots@gmail.com

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