Author Archives: Larry Dohey

Skittle Alley for Sale

Archival Moment

March 20, 1888

Farmers playing at skittles

Farmers playing at skittles

There was a time in the history of Newfoundland when one of the favorite recreational activities enjoyed by both men and women was the game of ‘skittles’.

St. John’s and other towns throughout the colony (later the province) could boast of “Skittle Alleys” where teams would gather to play their game.

On March 20, 1888 residents of St John’s discovered that the “Skittle Alley”, situated on Springdale Street was going on the auction block.  The owner of the property, James McKay, had died the year previous and the executors of his estate wanted to sell:

  “All the right, title and interest in and to all that Piece and Parcel of land with the building thereon, situate on Springdale Street, and formerly used as a skittle alley, having a frontage of 94 feet on Springdale Street and a like frontage on Thomas Street, and from front to rear 26 feet.”

The auction may have been necessitated by competition  from the opening of the new  indoor bowling alley just two years earlier in 1885, on the east end of Duckworth Street.

Skittles was played for centuries in public houses or clubs, mostly in western England and the Midlands, southern Wales, and southeastern Scotland. The rules and methods of scoring varied from place to place, but the basic principle of bowling a wooden or rubber ball (weighing about 10 pounds [4.5 kilograms]) at nine large oval-headed pins, set in diamond formation 21 feet (about 6.5 metres) away, remained the same. The player who knocked down all the pins in the fewest throws was the winner.

Does St. John’s need a new ‘Skittle Alley”?

Recommended Reading: The History of Skittles. http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Skittles.htm

“Their wails of distress … would melt the heart…”

Archival Moment

February 27, 1896

Octagon Castle, Octagon Pond, Topsail Road, Paradise

Octagon Castle, Octagon Pond, Topsail Road, Paradise

For many of our ancestors the family cow  was essential.  Having a cow often  was the difference between success and destitution.

On February 26, 1896, Michael Farrell, his wife and eight children were devastated by the news that “an engine (train) with a snow plow ran over and killed two valuable cows.”   The animals “were almost the sole support of the poor family.”

The death of the cows was most traumatic on the children and Mrs. Farrell.   Professor Charles Danielle,  a neighbor who lived in the Octagon Castle, Irvine Station  who was a witness to the horrendous accident wrote:

“Two of them (little girls) were trying to drive the cows from the track when the killing occurred  and their screams and that of the distressed mother when she arrived at the scene threw herself upon the body of the cow that was not killed outright … “

So traumatized was the family that:

“their wails of distress have continued … far into the night, and would melt the heart, to pity and charity of anyone that has a heart to feel in a case of such keen edged distress.”

The purpose of the letter by Professor Danielle, known about St. John’s as a well-established dancing teacher, costume maker, restaurateur, and resort owner was to help out the destitute family, financially. He wrote:

“I appeal to your influential journal (The Evening Telegram)  to the kind hearted people of St. John’s to help replace these bread winners (the two cows) by sending merciful aid to me through the Editor of this paper, and I will see that the amount is employed in replacing the cows as far as possible, with an acknowledgement of each amount.  I donate two dollars. Come friends and citizens; help me in this distressing case.”

There is no response to the letter but it can be assumed that the “very eccentric owner of Octagon Castle” must have gotten some positive response.

Octagon Castle at the time was a popular resort for “the pleasure-loving public of St John’s.”  No doubt Professor Danielle would have encouraged the many societies and clubs that held their picnics on his grounds and the hundreds of excursionists who  flocked to Octagon Castle to enjoy the boating and other amenities to support his neighours the  Farrell’s.  The Octagon Castle disappeared in a fire in 1915.

The Farrell Family continues to live on  in the area.

Recommended Reading:  Dictionary of Canadian Biography:  http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=6657&terms=created

Recommended Song: A Ballad by Johnny Burke: http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/29/lines.htm

Tar and turpentine remedy for diphtheria.

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

January 25, 1890

Fearing Quarantine many people denied they had diphtheria.

Fearing Quarantine many people denied they had diphtheria.

A diphtheria epidemic raged throughout Newfoundland from 1888 -1891, medical officials identified at least 3,183 cases and it had resulted in at least 624 deaths.

Parents were desperate for a cure and sought any remedy that they could find.  As a result adults and children were subjected to all kinds of treatments.

On January 25, 1890, the Newfoundland newspaper the ‘Twillingate Sun’ printed, “A Cure for Diphtheria.”  The article read:

“At the first indication of diphtheria in the throat of a child, make the room close; then take a tin cup and pour into it a quantity of tar and turpentine, equal parts. Then hold the cup over a fire so as to fill the room with fumes, the person affected will cough up and spit out all the membranous matter and the diphtheria will pass off. The fumes of the tar and turpentine loosens the matter in the throat and thus affords the relief that has baffled the skill of physicians. “

The St. John’s medical doctor, Dr. Thomas Howley in a report to government official explained how the disease was being spread. His report did not paint a pretty picture of St. John’s.  Howley wrote that the spread of the diphtheria epidemic in St John’s was caused by the:

 “wretchedly constructed and located dwellings”; houses were “built in defiance of all sanitary laws; damp sodden foundations; rotting timber sills; mouldy cellars; earth piled up against the bared walls preventing all chances of dryness; no house drains at all in the great majority of instances, necessitating the throwing out of the house slops out of doors, to still further saturate and poison the surrounding soil. . . .”

The St. John’s Board of Health, appointed in October, 1887 to eradicate the disease faced a number of obstacles.  Many of the poor families concealed the fact that they had the disease. The reason for such concealment was that families feared they would be quarantined to their homes, restricting their ability to earn a livelihood.

So intent were families to hide the fact that diphtheria was in their home, that a woman whose children had diphtheria hid the knowledge of the disease from her sister, the latter’s children being frequent visitors to the infected household.

In 1889 legislation was passed to enable the Board of Health to have a doctor visit any person sick or suspected of having a communicable disease   By April, 1892, diphtheria had all but disappeared from St. John’s, the number of deaths for the first three months of that year were 23.

In 1923, Gaston Ramon developed a toxoid vaccine, and clinical trials the following year showed that this vaccine induced a high level of protection among recipients. With the widespread use of this toxoid vaccine, the incidence of diphtheria dropped dramatically. Diphtheria is very rare in North America today and is considered to be eliminated.

Recommended Archival Collection:  At the Rooms Provincial Archives take some time to explore GN 2:17  known as the Quarantine letter books / James Crowdy these are not particular to the Diphtheria Epidemic  but the decisions made during  the outbreak of Asiatic cholera in 1832-1833  would have been the foundation for the preventive measures being discussed by government, including the proclamation and enforcement of quarantine regulations on incoming vessels, crew and passengers; the distribution of medication and literature  and the like.

Recommended Reading: Home Medicine: The Newfoundland Experience, by John K. Crellin, McGill – Queens University Press, 1994.

Laws to protect horses in Newfoundland needed

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

January 5, 1888

Lash the Captain to the Foremast

The horse was tied to the deck exposed to the winter elements.

The horse was tied to the deck exposed to the winter elements.

In a letter to the Editor of the local newspaper the ‘Twillingate Sun’  in January 1888 a resident of Little Bay wrote that he was infuriated with the practice of shipping animals on the deck of steamers in the winter season.

The person who penned the letter under the pseudonym “Humanity” was on the wharf in Little Bay, Twillingate waiting for the arrival of the local steamer the “Conscript.” The “Conscript” was used on the Newfoundland coastal mail service running from St. John’s to St. Anthony.  The run from St. John’s to Little Bay took a minimum of 72 hours.

The letter to The Editor read:

“Dear Sir – Allow me to call attention of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, (if not yet organized) to the shameful sight which met the gaze of those who visited the steamer “Conscript” on her arrival this afternoon. A fine black horse, which had been shipped from St John’s, in a box on deck, exposed to the frost and dashing spray, had at length been overcome and lay perishing on the deck and probably ere this, is dead.”

The writer was so angered that the horse was left to stand tied on the deck of the steamer exposed to the freezing elements that he had a suggestion for the Captain of the Conscript. He wrote:

“We would suggest that next trip, the shipper of the poor animal should be lashed to the foremast, and let take his chances at this inclement season, on a trip from St. John’s to Little Bay.

He continued:

“However, we protest against such inhumanity as shipping animals on deck in winter season, as was the case the last two trips of Conscript.”

This incident and others like it stirred supporters like Daniel W. Prowse, a lawyer, politician, judge, historian, (Prowse is the author of A History of Newfoundland which is considered one of the most complete and meticulous colonial history books in existence) and others became active supporters for the establishment of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) which was established in Newfoundland in November 1888.

The first work of this newly formed Society was mostly amongst horses, issues like their transportation in the winter months and the hardship they endured from pulling heavy loads.

Recommended Archival Collection:  AtThe Rooms Provincial Archives: MG 593 is the SPCA Collection 1912 -1927. It consists of correspondence; complaint books, and investigation reports into complaints of cruelty.

Recommended Song: Tickle Cove Pond. Allan Doyle (Great Big Sea).  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SNScBpa4lc

Recommended Web Site:  Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals – http://spcastjohns.org/home/

Internationally known architects have work in Newfoundland

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

December 14, 1924 

The New Palace – One of Several Buildings in Newfoundland by Internationally Celebrated Architects.  

The Palace, St. John’s, NL under construction in 1923.

The local St. John’s newspaper The Telegram on December 14, 1924 reported that::

The exterior work (of the New Palace) was constructed of bluestone taken from the quarries of Signal Hill. Freestone used in the construction was imported in the rough from the Wallace quarries in Nova Scotia. The architects of the new Palace were Delano and Aldrich of New York.”

The article was referring to the new home for the Catholic Archbishop of St. John’s, Edward Patrick Roche and the priests on the staff of the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (now Basilica). They moved into their new home on December 14, 1924.  The new home referred to locally as “The New Palace”  replaced the “Old Palace’ that burned to the ground in 1921. Palace was the name given to the official residence of a Catholic bishop.

The Palace located at 200 Military Road, on  the corner of Military Road and Bonaventure Avenue, (across the street from The Rooms)  is now the home of the Offices of the Archdiocese of St. John’s and is officially known as the Archdiocesan Pastoral Centre.

Although it was the official residence, Archbishop Roche never did live in the Palace.  He opted to make his home at Beaconsfield located on Topsail Road.  He commuted by car to the Palace every day.

The firm of Delano & Aldrich were no strangers to Newfoundland and occupied a central place in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, substantially shaping the architectural climate of the period. The grand country estates, striking townhouses and club buildings, churches, schools, and public buildings designed by William Adams Delano (1874–1960) and Chester Holmes Aldrich (1871–1940) are exceptional examples of architectural creativity and originality.

The New York Firm designed the American Embassy in Paris, France in 1929; construction began in 1931 and was completed in 1932. The Chancery of the Embassy is remarkably similar to the  St. John’s, Palace.  It has been suggested that the American Embassy in Parish is a larger scale version of the Palace in St. John’s.

Archbishop Roche became quite good friends with Delano joining him for lunch at the prestigious Knickerbocker Club in New York whenever he visited.  The Club was designed by Delano and Aldrich and was considered one of the bastions of old-world society.

View of front facade and right side, King George V Building, 93 Water Street, St. John’s.

William Adams Delano was quite familiar with Newfoundland. He was a board member for the International Grenfell Association (IGA) and was responsible for donating a number of designs for several hospitals and orphanages to that organization.  In St. John’s two of his most recognized designs are St. Clare’s Mercy Hospital (1938-1939) LeMarchant Road and  King George V Building,Water Street, erected in 1911.

Recommended Archival Collection: Archives of the R.C. Archdiocese, St. John’s . The Delano and Aldrich archive is held by the Drawings and Archives Department in the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at ColumbiaUniversity.

Recommended Reading:  The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich (Norton) by Peter Pennoyer and Anne Walker, 2003. (Eighteen projects are examined in detail, and a catalogue of the firm’s complete oeuvre.)

The First Transatlantic Radio Message

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

December 12, 1901

Photo Credit: The Rooms Provincial Archives: A 66-145; Guglielmo Marconi, with instruments used to receive first transatlantic message,St. John’s. Photographer James Vey, St. John’s.

On December 12, 1901, at the Signal Hill, St. John’s, Italian scientist and engineer Guglielmo Marconi sent and received the first transatlantic radio message.

The test signal was sent by electrical engineer John Ambrose Fleming in Poldhu,Cornwall, 3,200 km away across theAtlantic Ocean. It came in through a 121 metre long copper wire antenna trailing from a box kite and out through a radio speaker.

Marconi had set up temporary masts, but high winds had blown them down. The kite contraption worked. Marconi heard the first signal as the faint clicking of Morse code – of the letter ‘S’ –three short clicks– repeated over and over, and he passed the ear piece to his assistant, G. S. Kemp for corroboration.

Marconi first started experimenting with radiotelegraphy around 1895 and he realized that messages could be transmitted over much greater distances by using grounded antennae on the radio transmitter and receiver.

A few years after his successful transmission with Fleming, Marconi opened the first commercial wireless telegraph service.

Recommended Archival Collection:  At the Rooms Provincial Archives Division see  F.37-’37  one of the archival documents is the Proposal of the Canadian Marconi Company to establish a wireless telephone service between St. John’s and Canada, the United States and Great Britain

Recommended Reading:  Marconi, by Giancarlo Masini, Marsilio Publishers: 1999.

Recommended Website:  http://www.marconicalling.co.uk/  Marconi Calling is a fascinating exploration of Guglielmo Marconi’s life, his scientific discoveries, the impact of wireless and the development of modern communications

Wrapped in prayer to the end

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

5 December, 1893

Bishop Thomas Power died on December 4, 1893.

The population of the Colony of Newfoundland was informed through the pages of the local newspapers (December 5, 1893) that Bishop Thomas Joseph Power, 23 years Roman Catholic Bishop of St. John’shad died.

The St. John’s newspaper, The Evening Herald reported:

 “The Bishop’s death  (December 4, 1893) has been a sudden shock.  In apparent good health on Saturday, he is lying cold and silent in death on Monday evening.  A sharp attack of pneumonia brought on the end.”

Power’s significance lies almost entirely in the ecclesiastical field.

In 1875 the bishop brought the Irish Christian Brothers to Newfoundlandand placed them in charge of St Bonaventure’s College and the schools of the Benevolent Irish Society. Under his episcopate the religious congregations of the Sisters of Mercy and Presentation Sisters expanded and were introduced to parishes outside St John’s. During his episcopate the cathedral (now a Basilica) in St John’s, the demonstrable presence of Roman Catholicism in the island, was renovated; a monastery for the Christian Brothers, Mount St Francis, erected; and two orphanages, Belvedere for girls and Villa Nova for boys, as well as many churches and schools, built.

The Evening Herald report on the death of Bishop Power concluded:

Having received holy Viaticum, Bishop Power extended his hand and bade goodbye to his confessor, Reverend J. Walsh of Portugal Cove.  He then closed his eyes and remained wrapped in prayer to the end.  For hours the nuns, brothers, and priests knelt by his bedside, sprinkling his couch with blessed water and reciting the rosaries and litanies for the departing soul.  At last, after a long interval, came the final respiration, and even as the prayers of the Sisters, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph” – were softly whispered in his ear, just as the hand of Father John Scott was raised in the last Absolution, a heavenly calm came over his features and the spark of life slowly went out and the soul of Thomas Joseph, Sixth Bishop of St. John’s, was safe  in the arms of his Heavenly Master.

(They just don’t write obitituaries like that any more!)

Bishop Power might however not be happy with his place of burial. He was buried in the crypt under the altar of the Basilica Cathedral.  It was his stated wish that:

 “my body be buried in St. Patrick’s Church, River Head  (Patrick Street) in front of the Convent Choir & opposite a side altar to be erected in honor of the great Patriarch St. Joseph.”

 Recommended Archival Collection: Archives of the R.C. Archdiocese ofSt. John’s.

Dictionary of Canadian Biography:  http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?BioId=40496

A treacherous limestone reef

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

November 22, 1874

A marker in a field on Anticosti Island remembers a crew from Carbonear that died.

On November 22, 1874 the brigantine ORIENT, owned by the Joyce Brothers of Carbonear, one of their three sealing ships was wrecked at Anticosti Island.

A simple marker in a field not far from the beach on the south side of the island of Anticosti in the mouth of the St. Lawrence River (Quebec) reads:

In   memory of  Captain John Edgar Joyce  of  Carbonear, Newfoundland  aged 27 years  and crew  of Brigantine Orient  lost 22nd November 1874  who are buried as follows:

Joseph Taylor (25 years)
Stewart Taylor (17)
Thomas Fitzpatrick (13?)
William Clark (21)
Charles Henry (36)
Ambrose Forward (20)
Richard Taylor (19)

The Captain’s brother, Gilbert JOYCE, who was mate on the ship and seaman Charles MOORES of English Hill, Carbonear, were the only survivors.

Anticostiis almost 8,000 sq. km of pristine wilderness: 222 km long and 50 km wide in some spots. Its name derives from the French’s literal assertion that it was impossible to land a boat on its coastline, because of a treacherous limestone reef that extends up to a kilometre into the St. Lawrence all around the island. More than 400 ships found this out the hard way, the last one foundering onto the reef in a storm in 1982.

Recommended Archival Collection:  The Maritime History Archive collects and preserves documents relating to the history of maritime activities in Newfoundland and Labrador and throughout the North Atlantic world. http://www.mun.ca/mha/index.php.

Please Inform Next of Kin

November 11

Archival Moment

The McGrath’s of  Branch  

Photo Credit: The Rooms Provincial Archives: A 59-56; Graves of Newfoundland Regiment soldiers, Newfoundland Memorial Park., Beaumont Hamel, France.

On 17 April of 1917, twenty one year old George McGrath of Gull Cove, Branch, St. Mary’s Bay left Branch for St. John’s. He was determined to sign up for the war effort to fight for “country and king.”

Just one month following George’s departure from Branch his nineteen year old brother Joseph told his father Patrick and his mother Elizabeth  that it was also his intention to join the war effort.  Joseph left Branch and met with recruiters in St. John’s signing his attestation papers on 11 May, 1917. 

In August 1917 Joseph McGrath #3760 with the other First Newfoundland Regiment volunteers marched from their training camp near Quidi Vidi Lake to the SS Florizel, the troop ship, anchored in St. John’s Harbour.  They were beginning the first leg of a journey to the fighting fields of Europe.  He joined a battalion in Rouen, France on January 15, 1918.

Five months later Patrick and Elizabeth McGrath  – were approached by the parish priest clutching a telegram –   it read “Regret to inform you  that the Record Office, London, officially reports NO 3760, Private Joseph McGrath wounded on April 13 and missing in action.”

Patrick and Elizabeth McGrath for consolation turned to family and friends in Branch.  They lived in hope – in letters to the war office they pleaded for “any shred of news.” 

There was also confusion – their son George who was fighting in Europe had heard rumors that Joseph was in Wandsworth, a large hospital about 5 miles outside of London. Wandsworth Hospital was where many members of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment were treated for injuries. 

On 13 November 1918 word spread quickly in Branch that a second telegram had been delivered – via the Newfoundland Postal Telegraph – the telegram was addressed to “The Parish Priest or School Teacher.”  The telegram read: 

“London reports today that Private Joseph McGrath previously reported wounded and missing in action is presumed dead. Please inform next of kin Patrick McGrath, Gull Cove, Branch.”

The blinds in all the homes of Branch were drawn.  

Joseph was buried at  BEAUMONT-HAMEL -Somme, France. He had just turned twenty years old.

On November 11 make time go to the cenotaph in Branch –  or the cenotaph in your community  – whisper a prayer for Patrick, Joseph and George McGrath.  Whisper a prayer for all who have known war, or died in a war; remember all who have lost a loved one.

Other TRUE STORIES  based on the files of the members of the  Royal  Newfoundland Regiment.

He Was My Only Son: http://archivalmoments.ca/2012/06/he-was-my-only-son-he-has-played-the-heros-part/

Little Hope of Recovering the Body: http://archivalmoments.ca/2012/06/little-hope-of-recovering-the-body/

Recommended Archival Collection: Over 6000 men enlisted in the Newfoundland Regiment during WWI.  Each soldier had his own story. Each story is compelling. To read some of these stories go to:  http://www.therooms.ca/regiment/part3_database.asp click on soldiers at the top centre. Find a soldier from your home community or with your family name. Read his life story.

Recommended Song: Great Big Sea – Recruiting Sergeant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knxR-Q2VoBE

Recommended Book: Browne,Gary. Forget-Me-Not: Fallen Boy Soldiers: Royal Newfoundland Regiment World War One,St. John’s, DRC Publishing, 2010. 

Lost Tradition: Upon hearing the news of the death of someone in most Newfoundland communities the curtains and blinds were drawn. Houses on the funeral route had their doors closed and their curtains drawn