Island Cove, Newfoundland

Date: 1850 to 1966
Location: Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, Canada
Surnames/tags: newfoundland island_cove

This article is an excerpt from the Encyclopedia of Newfoundland, and needs to be edited for length and content. Anything you can do is appreciated.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Early Families 1.2 Resources 2 Sources

History

Island Cove, Trinity Bay was a fishing community (now resettled) located on the south side of Southwest Arm, between Long Beach and Hodge's Cove.

Early Families

According to family tradition, Steven Smith came out from England as a stowaway and became the first settler of Island Cove after marrying a Peddle from Hodge's Cove in the 1850s. Steven Smith had a large family, including eight sons, and everyone in the community throughout its history bore the family name Smith or was connected to the Smith family by marriage. Island Cove was first recorded separately in the Census of 1884 with 18 residents^[1].

The Smiths of Island Cove supplemented the inshore fishery by logging the steep slopes of the Arm and growing vegetables on "the Big Hill" behind the community. In the early part of the twentieth century the Labrador fishery assumed increasing importance. In 1921, when the community recorded its peak population of 41, all eight fishermen in the community were engaged in fishing on the Labrador from a 37-ton schooner.

The Smiths developed strong ties of marriage to the larger communities of Long Beach and Hodge's Cove and most often attended churches and schools at Hodge's Cove. When the community was resettled in 1966, the majority of Island Cove residents moved to those two communities.

Resources

What links to this page.

Sources

1. ↑ Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, 1994 volume 3 (Extract: letter I). Entry for Island Cove, p. 81. Memorial University of Newfoundland Website. Accessed 2018.