Channel, Newfoundland

Date: About 1815 to 1945
Location: [unknown]
Surname/tag: newfoundland

Contents 1 About 2 History 2.1 Early Families 2.2 Resources 3 Sources

About

Channel was settled by the late 1700s. It was located on the tip of a peninsula, on the southwest coast Newfoundland. As the peninsula grew more crowded over time, the communities eventually grew together, and in 1945, Channel was amalgamated into a larger community called "Channel-Port-aux Basques".

History

A local tradition maintains that the name Channel is derived from the Channel Islanders who reportedly first settled at Channel in 1714; however, documented evidence fails to support this tradition. Eighteenth Century European maps have a variety of names for the area: Popple's English map of 1733 calls it "Swift Harbour"; Mathew Seutter's map, "Partie Orientale de la Nouvelle France ou du Canada avec I'lsle de Terre Neuve" (1730) names it "Swints Port"; in 1747 the New and Accurate Map of the Islands of Newfoundland, Cape Briton, St. John and Anticosta by Eman Bowen labelled it "Swift Port" and on two French maps published in 1754 and 1764 it appears as "Port aux Basques ou Smits Port".^[1]"

Captain James Cook charted a detailed map of the harbour in 1764, which he labelled "Port aux Basque," showing the tip of the peninsula (Channel) as "Sw. Pt. (Swift Point?)," the passage between the tip and the outlying island as Avirons Passage, the island as White Island, and the tip (Channel Head) as Point Blanche, a name which survived till the early 1800s. (A Joseph Brag was listed as being born at Point Blanche in 1816; E.R. Seary; 1976.)

Channel, John Gill's Harbour and Mouse Island Harbour were first reported in the Census, 1857, with Channel having the largest number of people. It had a relatively large French population. While the merchant houses of the Channel Islands and England established fishing stations and bases from the Burin Peninsula to Burgeo-La Poile in the Eighteenth Century, these did not extend to Port aux Basques which was exploited by the French after they withdrew from Hudson Bay, Placentia and mainland Nova Scotia according to the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht 1713. The remoteness of the area was the main reason for its exploitation by the French. According to C Grant Head (1976) Port Aux Basques was "something of a minor metropolis on this long but sparsely-settled stretch of coast. Remote as it was from the main English fishing areas, it was noted to have good fishing grounds 'about' it, and it was not far from earlier French areas of exploitation on Cape Breton."

The growth of the settlements of Channel, Port aux Basques and environs in the early 1800s can be attributed to its advantageous position abutting the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Although the French moved their main fishing bases north of Cape Ray after 1800, the growth of settlement in the Codroy Valley and the expansion of trade west of Burgeo contributed to Channel's growing importance. In 1856 it was reported "At Channel there is considerable business carried on by Prior and Sons, and by an agent of P. Nicolle — it is visited by many traders from the provinces . . . much fish is sold here, from the knife, in September, October, November and December to traders" (JHA: 1857). William Pryor of Halifax was granted land at Port aux Basques in 1846 and established a trading business there; Nicolle was one of the major Jersey trading firms of the south coast. The report also mentioned frequent stops by United States traders plying the coast and the Strait of Belle Isle. In 1857 a telegraph station was established at Channel-Port aux Basques which was considered to have added to "much to its importance" (JHA: 1857, appendix p. 367). Although the Nicolle company was no longer operating there by the 1860s, a number of local merchant firms came into being: besides Pryor, John Guillam, Archibald Kidstone (an American) and Alexander Waddell were reported to be merchants at Channel in 1864; by 1866 Ridley and Sons were reported operating and by 1871 John Genneaux had joined the mercantile ranks. In 1877 there were six merchants at Channnel alone — Bragg, Gosset and Company, J.L. Knight, John Pool, Joseph Small and John Steer, the Garland Company agent.

Early Families

According to Seary (1976) a Joseph Brag was baptized at Pointe Blanche (Channel) in 1816, the Guillam (Gillam) family was reported at Channel in 1829 and a Charles Guillam was baptized at Port Aux Basques in 1830. An Elias Coffin was reported at Channel in 1830, a George Harvey at Point Blanche in the same year, and a James Beaufit was at Port Aux Basques in 1835. According to family tradition an Edward Sheaves settled at Sheaves Cove, Channel Harbour in 1789 and according to Seary, a Charles Shave was a resident of Port aux Basques in 1835. Edward Wix, the first clergyman known to have visited the area, reported in 1835: "Put into Port Aux Basque, and held full service at the house of Michael Guillam where I slept." He also mentions a Thomas Harvie at Channel and two families at Gale's Harbour, three miles from "Port au Basque or the Channel." He regretfully noted that had he been a week earlier in his visitation ' 'I might have had a congregation of two hundred, — there were so many boats and vessels belonging to Fortune Bay which were bound to the western fishery at anchor here. I assembled fifty persons and baptized ten." (Edward Wix: 1836).

By the 1840s the Dennis, Forcey (Forsey), Galton (Gaulton), Gauge (Genge), Pryor and Matthews families were at Channel and Port Aux Basques and by the 1850s the Bartlett, Dingwell. Pool, Pike and Rose families were reported (E.R. Seary: 1976). At Channel in 1857 there were forty-two families of which 289 people were born in Newfoundland, twelve in England, nine in the British Colonies and two in Ireland. The predominantly Church of England settlement of Channel had one church (built in 1845 and shared originally by the Methodist and Church of England congregations until the Methodists sold their share and the church was consecrated as a Church of England Church in 1855 by Bishop Feild) and a Protestant public school established some time before 1858, instructed by a John Jordan, with an enrolment of sixty-eight but "not in operation" in 1858 (JHA: 1859, appendix p. 566). In 1860 ft was reported that the Channel School Board "besides running an efficient School at Channel" supported schools at Burnt Islands and Seal Cove; Channel was also the base of a Church of England Missionary Division that extended from Channel to the Codroy River (JHA: 1860-61, appendix p. 369). The first exclusively Methodist church was not built until 1896.

Resources

What links to this page.

Sources

1. ↑ Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, 1994 volume 1 (Extract: letter C). Entry for Channel-Port aux Basques, p. 401. Memorial University of Newfoundland Website. Accessed 2018.