Ice Caps Answer the ‘Hockey’ Call

“Some of our best puck chasers are in khaki …”

Photo Credit: The Rooms Provincial Archives: 1.26.01.074; Royal Newfoundland Regiment Hockey Team (Click on the photo to enlarge)

Photo Credit: The Rooms Provincial Archives: 1.26.01.074; Royal Newfoundland Regiment Hockey Team (Click on the photo to enlarge)

The First World War (1914- 1918) took a terrible toll, claiming the lives of hundreds of young Newfoundlanders, including many athletes. Among these sportsmen were some of the best hockey players in Newfoundland. The newspapers of the day reported “at present some of our best puck chasers are in khaki.”

With the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 some of the first men to ‘sign up‘ were the young men from the hockey teams in St. John’s. The powerhouse team in St. John’s at the time was the team known as the Crescents, these young men signed up, almost to a man. Len Stick a member of the team was the first and holds the distinction of holding the title ‘Regimental #1.’

The Newfoundland Regiment also known as the ‘First 500’ or ‘Blue Puttees’ following a short period of military training in St. John’s at Pleasantville departed St. John’s on the SS Florizel for England on October 4, 1914. After a short stint of military training at Salisbury Plain, England they were transferred to Fort George, Inverness, Scotland arriving on December 7, 1914.The young Newfoundland hockey players were passionate about their sport and were determined to play in their adopted country. Northern Scotland’s climate was very like Newfoundland’s allowing for the same opportunities for outdoor skating. Less than three weeks after their arrival in Scotland the local St. John’s newspaper the Evening Telegram reported on January 18, 1915:

The St. John's Ice Caps will be wearing a special jersey to remember the Newfoundland Regiment on February 5th and 6th.

The St. John’s Ice Caps will be wearing a special jersey to remember the Newfoundland Regiment on February 5th and 6th.

“The Newfoundland Hockey League have cabled Lieutenant Tait at Fort George (Scotland) to get a set of hockey uniforms at the expense of the league. It looks as if there is some chance of ice hockey in Northern Scotland.”

A few short weeks later the Telegram reported that the Newfoundlanders were playing at the Haymarket Rink, Edinburgh. The report read:

“the ice hockey match between two teams from the Newfoundland Regiment …. the exhibition must have been a good one the result was a draw, both sides scoring one goal.”

Hockey was one of the few leisure activities for the young men while preparing for war, they had played hockey with all of their passion as young men with great Newfoundland hockey teams like the Crescent’s, the Feildians, the Terra Novans. They were now playing with the same passion on the ice in Scotland for recreation with their friends. These same young men were to soon find themselves in the trenches of Turkey and later France. Many dying for their country.

IMG_00002047Almost 101 years to the day (January 14, 2016) Danny Williams, President and Chief Executive Director of the St. John’s Ice Caps has announced the launch of another Regimental hockey uniform.   The St. John’s Ice Caps on February 5 and 6 at Mile One Stadium will wear a jersey designed to recall the history of the Newfoundland Regiment, celebrating Newfoundland’s hockey history.

Recommended Archival Collection: The Rooms Provincial Archives – Sports Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador photograph collection. Hockey Royal Newfoundland Regiment Hockey Team 1.26.01.074

Recommended Link: Library and ARCHIVES Canada. Hockey and the First World War: http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/news/videos/Pages/hockey-first-world-war-exhibition.aspx

Recommended Reading: ICING THE PUCK: THE ORIGINS, RISE, AND DECLINE OF NEWFOUNDLAND SENIOR HOCKEY, 1896-1996 by Gregory B. White. A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Sociology\Faculty of Arts\Memorial University April, 1997 St. John’s Newfoundland.

 

 

 

Newfoundland is not as “dreary as we heard.”

Archival Moment

January 10, 1856

Nano Nagle founder of the Presentation Congregation.

Nano Nagle founder of the Presentation Congregation.

 “On the 10th of January, 1856 , Sister Mary Clare Waldron, Sister Mary Ignatius Quinlan, Sister Mary Rose Mullally, and Sister Mary Regis Haplin (novice) religious of the Presentation Order, came from the Mother house to establish another house of the Order at Riverhead in this town (St. John’s) under the authority of Most Reverend Dr. Mullock, Bishop of St. John’s .”

The first nuns to serve in Newfoundland reached St John’s harbour on 21 September 1833.

The four Galway women came to Newfoundland at the invitation of the Catholic Bishop, Michael Fleming to establish a school that would offer improved educational opportunity for girls and young women in St. John’s.

Upon arrival in St. John’s the nuns were agreeably surprised by the appearance of Newfoundland.

“This country,” Sister Mary Bernard Kirwin wrote in her first letter home, “is by no means as dreary as we heard. The bay is beautiful and so is the country as far as we can see.”

Within a few weeks of their arrival in St. John’s the sisters had gathered approximately 450 students that they divided into classes. They began teaching in a room at the rear of an old tavern, the “Rising Sun” that also served as their home. The curriculum included grammar, literature, arithmetic, French, music, needle work, and Christian doctrine.

The Presentation Sisters remain active in Newfoundland and Labrador. Some places where you will meet Presentation women are: The Gathering Place; Nano Nagle Spirituality Centre; Presentation Sisters’ Retreat House ; St. Catherine’s Renewal Centre; The Lantern and Xavier House.

Recommended Archival Collection: Presentation Congregation Archives, Cathedral Square, St. John’s. The collection, which includes manuscripts, artifacts, record books, photographs and personal papers, documents the history of the Presentation Congregation in Newfoundland from the arrival of the first four volunteers to the present day. The Archives also holds materials related to education and to other apostolates in which the Presentation Order is involved. An interesting part of the Archives is the photographic collection that presents a visual history of the Presentation Congregation in Newfoundland.

Recommended Reading: http://www.presentationsisters.ca/

Did you know? One of the ventures of the Presentation Congregation with others is the Gathering Place, Military Road, St. John’s (see the advertisement above) The Gathering Place offers a noon meal program each weekday. Since its opening in 1994, the program has served numbers ranging from 40 to 170 guests per day.

“They raided and stole puddings and turkeys”

Archival Moment

December 24, 1915

Photo Credit: The Rooms Provincial Archives A 58-153; Newfoundland troops resting in the snow

Photo Credit: The Rooms Provincial Archives A 58-153; Newfoundland troops resting in the snow. Click on photo to enlarge.

Christmas 1915, the men of the Newfoundland Regiment found themselves in Turkey. They had to be creative with regard to making a good Christmas dinner. In 1928 Major J. W. March with a friend W.J. Eaton recalled the Christmas of 1915 in the trenches.

“On Christmas Eve we landed at Helles, (Turkey) and proceeded inland under a downpour of rain, eventually halting, not in trenches, but in square holes in the ground. Here then we spent Christmas, 1915.

The night of December 24th is rather historic; it was known that our Christmas dinners were to consist of one good tin of Bully Beef and four square biscuits, which looked like and were commonly known to the Troops, as dog biscuits. On top of this a party was detailed to proceed to Headquarters to draw picks and shovels, presumably for work the following day.

Our Battalion Poet describes the scene as follows:

In the night there came an order

Immediately to send some boys

For picks and shovels from Headquarters.

Food they pinched and made a noise,

They brought back no rusty shovels,

And I fear the story’s true,

That they raided and stole puddings,

Pinched the General’s turkey too.

The following is the unofficial version in prose:

Whilst the officer in charge of the carrying party of 50 men, was arranging for the working tools, the men were investigating and discovered a pretentious “cook-house,” the sentry on duty there being rather a nuisance, was quickly and silently gagged with a large woolen scarf, and many 7-lb. tins of pudding, dates and even a Turkey quickly disappeared from this splendid establishment.

The Brigade Major, however, appeared on the scene like the raging lion of ancient days and many of the puddings had to fly over the cliff so that no evidence would be found.

Comrade W. J. Eaton was guide for this party and we fully believe that in his capacity as guide he unconsciously led back that night, many puddings and a turkey or two.

Of Christmas Day there is not much to be said. The best possible was done with the materials at hand, and after all, the unquenchable spirit of the men and the good comradeship made the Christmas Day at Helles happy for all concerned.”

Recommended Exhibit: Archives Reference Entrance: The Newfoundland Regiment and the Gallipoli Campaign. This small exhibition commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915, where members of the 1st Newfoundland Regiment experienced their baptism by fire and saw their first combat casualties. Lantern slides, photographs, maps and documents provide insights into this ill-fated campaign. – See more at: https://www.therooms.ca/exhibits/now/the-newfoundland-regiment-and-the-gallipoli-campaign#sthash.GzGNwAKA.dpuf

Recommended Reading: The Veteran, 1928, vol. 7, no. 4 (December) has a number of stories written by the men and women who served in the First World War.

 

 

The tradition of Midnight Mass

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

December 23, 1895

Midnight Mass has been celebrated in the Basilica since 1895.

On December 23, 1895 the St. John’s newspaper The Daily News announced that:

 “His Lordship the Right Reverend Dr. Michael F. Howley  (Roman Catholic Bishop of St. John’s, Newfoundland) has decided to revive the custom of celebrating  the first Mass of Christmas morning  at the very opening of the ever glorious day.”

Bishop Howley was reviving the tradition of the celebration of Midnight Mass, a custom that has continued at the Roman Catholic Cathedral (now Basilica) since that announcement in 1895.

Bishop Howley noted that midnight mass was “long in existence in the Roman Catholic Church though allowed to lapse for some years past in this country – Newfoundland.”

The article does not explain why the tradition of the midnight mass was dropped before 1895 in St. John’s.

The newspaper account went on to describe the elaborate decorations of the cathedral. 

Basilica Cathedral St. John's

Basilica Cathedral St. John’s

“The interior of the Roman Catholic Cathedral is already beginning to assume the festive garb which always marks the anniversary of the Nativity. The altars and the pulpit are artistically festooned with evergreen to which will be added extensive floral ornamentations interspersed with countless twinkling lights, before the joy bells ring out their glad peal at midnight, to proclaim the birth of the God Man.”

Many theologians say that the Midnight Mass evolved from individuals making pilgrimages to the Holy Land and the actual birthplace of Christ. Because the Bible states that Jesus was born at night and in a manger, to fully immerse oneself in the story and the liturgical significance of the moment, a Midnight Mass seems the best place to achieve these goals. The darkness and the gentle hush that nighttime helps set the scene and enhance the spiritual component of Christmas.

On the Christian calendar – Midnight mass has been observed since at least the year 381. In  381 a Christian woman named Egeria made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, observing for three years and keeping a journal of the customs and liturgies she saw there. She witnessed the Christians celebrating the birth of Christ at midnight with a vigil in Bethlehem, which was followed by a torchlight procession to Jerusalemculminating with a gathering in Jerusalemat dawn.

Recommended Archival Collection:  Archives of the R.C. Archdiocese of St. John’s, Bishop Michael Francis Howley Collection.

Recommended Reading: The Story of the Basilica of St. John the Baptist by: Susan Chalker Browne . Flanker Press, St. John’s, 2015. There have always been many rumours, tales and fiction told about the securing of the land, the money and the stone and the construction of the imposing building. Susan Chalker Browne has written a book to sort fact from fiction.

 

“The Gale, the Worst for Fifty Years”

Archival Moment

December 23, 1890

e048fce0203eef476bdd23b6560d31abThe Christmas Season, 1890, was a difficult time for many families throughout Newfoundland, the families were trying to recover as best they could from the loss of their fishing schooners or homes, lost or damaged in the “violence of the gale which swept over the country.”

Headlines in the St. John’s newspaper the Evening Telegram on December 2, 1890 tried to convey how intense the storm was with headlines like “The Gale, the Worst for Fifty Years” and “A Night of Terror”

The newspaper reported:

“Its beginning last night will be memorable for the violence of the gale which swept over this section of country. The roar of the wind was something awful; it reached a pitch of sharpness that seemed to express a vengeful rage of destruction, and resembled a steamer letting off steam.

Hundreds of people were up all night guarding their property as best they might. The force of the wind may be understood when it is stated that it tore off slates from the roof of the church of England Cathedral and St. Andrew’s Church; and the iron railing which surmounts the Athenaeum was blown down.

From a house on Harvey Road, near the Parade Rink, where dwelt three families, the inmates no sooner escaped than the roof blew in.

Hundreds of people were up all night watching their domiciles and fearing the worst; and, in Quidi Vidi, pretty nearly the whole population were on the qui vive (alert).

The article went on to describe other particulars about the storm and the damage that it inflicted but it was not until December 23, 1890 that the full impact of the storm was realized.

J.W. Withers the Colonial Secretary in Newfoundland reported, based on “the local press and from returns forwarded from the districts that 49 fishing vessels with their cargo had been lost and another 39 schooners had been damaged.

Even more devastating to the families was the report of extensive damage done to 63 homes and 20 stores.

Reports from some communities were very particular:

“At Quidi Vidi widespread devastation was wreaked. Burton’s house, stores and flakes were levelled to the ground; Dunn’s house had its roof blown off; Power’s flakes and Pynn’s were laid flat, and Skifflngton had a boat lost.”

The Telegram was happy to report:

“The instances enumerated are only a few of the havoc wrought in town and country, but the happiest feature in the tale of general wreck and ruin is that no loss of life is to be deplored.”

Recommended Archival Collection: At the Rooms Provincial Archives GN 1.3A  File 3, 1890 contains a detailed inventory of vessels and schooners, their community of origin and vessel name lost and damaged by the December Gale of 1890.

Did Labrador have the first Christmas tree In North America?

Photo Credit: The Rooms Provincial Archives: A 59-19; Four Inuit children during Christmas event, Nain.

Photo Credit: The Rooms Provincial Archives: A 59-19; Four Inuit children during Christmas event, Nain, Labrador.

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

The tradition of the Christmas tree has been firmly established in Newfoundland and Labrador since at least the 1846 and may have been part of the culture long before that.

The first documented Christmas tree in Canada was the tree set up by Baron Friederick von Riedesel in 1781 in Sorel, Quebec. The Baron,  following the custom of his native Germany, cut down a balsam fir from the dense forest surrounding his home and decorated it with white candles.

The next recorded use of a Christmas tree  in what  is now Canada is debatable. Was it Labrador or Halifax?

In Halifax in 1846, William Pryor, a local merchant, cut down an evergreen and decorated it with glass ornaments imported from Germany to please his German wife.

Several  American  cities claim to have had the first Christmas tree in America. Bethlehem, PA appears to have had the first decorated Christmas tree in 1747 at the German Moravian Church settlement, however it was made by putting evergreen branches on a wooden pyramid! Windsor Locks, CT claims they have earliest date in 1777.

In Labrador a writer with the Scottish publication, Hogg’s Weekly Instructor in June 1847 reporting on the work of the Moravian Missionaries in Labrador wrote:

“One year some German friends, remembering the pleasure created in their own country with the illumination of Christmas trees sent several hundred little candles to Labrador. The missionaries distributed them to the children after fixing them in some of the small white radishes which they raise in their melancholy gardens.”

It is likely that the candles were placed in the radishes by the missionaries to mimic a Christmas tree.

Perhaps Labrador was the first?

The Moravian Missionaries have been firmly established in Labrador since 1771. It is likely that these missionaries carried with them their customs and traditions which would have included the decoration of the Christmas tree.

The article in Hogg’s Weekly Journal was printed in 1847 but clearly the writer is recalling an event that took place in the past.

Is it possible that the Christmas tree tradition in Labrador started with that first Christmas in 1771 – a full ten years before the claim by the town of Sorel, Quebec  (1781) and  six year before  Windsor Locks, CT (1777). ?

On the island portion of the province it is likely that the custom of using Christmas Trees was influenced by Queen Victoria. The young queen had a tree set up 1848, in accordance with the German Christmas custom of her German born husband, Prince Albert.  It was a tradition that  was quickly adopted by her subjects!

Recommended Exhibit: At The Rooms take some time to see a number of Christmas themed trees that have been prepared by staff and visiting students. Some of the trees that are featured include:

Recommended Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lhQ_hBT7lA  Tannenbaum is a Christmas carol of German origin. A Tannenbaum is a fir tree or Christmas tree.

The first Salvation Army kettle in Newfoundland

ARCHIVAL MOMENT : CHRISTMAS TRADITION  

Photo Credit: The Rooms Provincial Archives: A 51-65. Salvation Army Christmas 1906 in front of No. 1 Citadel on New Gower Street,St. John’s, the first occasion of Salvation Army using collecting kettles at St. John’s.

One of the enduring symbols of Christmas is the Salvation Army kettle. Salvationists and friends stand at strategic shopping locations inviting the public to drop a few coins in their “kettles” with the monies realized going to the poor.

The kettle first appeared on the streets of San Francisco, California, USA in 1891 brainchild of Captain Joseph McFee, the kettles were used in a campaign to raise funds for a shelter in the waterfront district.

He remembered, during his earlier days in Liverpool, England, seeing a large kettle where passengers of boats that docked nearby were able to toss coins to help the poor.

Captain McFee suspended a large cooking pot from a tripod and placed a sign above it that read: “Keep the pot boiling.” Shortly thereafter, Christmas kettles began appearing in communities across the United States and are now an indispensable part of the holiday season.

In Newfoundland the Salvation Army has been firmly established since the first meeting of the Army on September 3, 1885 at the Methodist Church in Portugal Cove.

In late January of 1886 a group of four female officers arrived in St. John’s, soon followed by a District Officer, Arthur Young. This initial group of Salvationists established the first corps in Newfoundland on Springdale Street in St. John’s. They held outdoor meetings at the Parade Ground, and marched with their followers through the streets making as much noise as possible. Within two months, the Salvation Army in St. John’s had 200 soldiers.

It was the Christmas of 1906 that the first kettle was introduced into Newfoundland. The kettle was suspended on a tripod in front of No. 1 Citadel on New Gower Street, St. John’s.

In Canada the Salvation Army collects approximately $15 -20 million in the nearly 2,000 kettles on street corners and at retail outlets. In Newfoundland the kettles raises approximately $200,000.

Recommended Archival Collection: At The Rooms Provincial Archives there is a small collection of photographs documenting the presence of the army in Newfoundland and Labrador.

“Christmas cake lottery season”

Archival Moment

December 17, 1884

Cake LotteryThere was a time in St. John’s when most people preferred to take home their ‘Christmas Cake’ after rolling the dice?

A Christmas experience that was quite popular in St. John’s, Newfoundland from the 1860 – 1890’s was the annual Christmas Cake Lottery. The practice was in fact so popular that many people referred to the Christmas season as the “cake lottery season”.

On December 20, 1884, the St. John’s newspaper The Evening Telegram reported:

“The ‘cake lottery season’ has now attained its height, and the confectionary business is fairly blooming.”

The competition between the ‘cake bakers’ for the attention of the public was huge with bakers in St. John’s vying for the attention of the Christmas shoppers to purchase their “large and elegantly decorated stocks of delicious cakes.”

Time to get the Christmas Cake ready!!

Time to get the Christmas Cake ready!!

A St. John’s business directory in 1884 reported that that there was approximately 90 bakers registered in St. John’s. Almost every street in the town had a registered baker. In addition to the independent neighborhood bakers most Confectionary Stores had on staff at least one baker and many with more to meet the baking demands of their customers.

The notion of the cake lottery was so ingrained that an exception was made in the governments law “The Act of Suppressing Lotteries, 1864”; that allowed the ‘cake lottery’ “lawful during seasonal general festivity to hold Cake, Bazaars and other lotteries.”

There were those that were suspect of how the lotteries operated. On December 17, 1885, edition of the St. John’s Evening Telegram cautioned:

“Now that the customary Christmas Cake Lotteries have again come around, and the luck ‘turn to die’ enables many a one to win a frosted cake, who would otherwise be without one, I hope that the proprietors of these enterprises will see to it that honest persons only, and competent to reckon, will be given charge of the tables.”

It appears that in previous years that the newspaper reporter had observed that there was some skullduggery. In fact he had observed:

“ an instance, last year, of collusion between a party in charge of cakes and a confederate, by which the winner was cheated out of his right. It was done by snatching up the dice quickly after the last throw, before those interested could see the number of dots, and the dealer declaring his friend to have thrown the highest number and giving him the prize.”

The popularity of the tradition of holding the cake lotteries remained very prevalent until 1892. In the Great Fire of 1892 many of the bakeries that had normally participated had been destroyed by the conflagration.

It was in 1895 that the cake lottery was gradually replaced by the notion of a cake raffle.   The move saw patrons on designated nights buying raffle tickets rather than throwing the dice to win the Christmas cake.

 

The Old Port of St. John’s

Archival Moment

December 2015

A great Christmas present.

A great Christmas present.

More than 500 years in the making, St. John’s has become one of the most beautiful and incredible oceanside cities in the world.

The traditional hub of St. John’s was always the downtown and nowhere was it more active than in the port. In 2015, the Port of St. John’s marked the 50th anniversary of its establishment as a federally incorporated port.

In the fifty years since the port’s incorporation under the National Harbours Board of Canada, the Port of St. John’s has undergone remarkable change.

The gradual decline of various fisheries around the island saw the replacement of annual traditions with new ones. For years the port had hosted the arrival and departure of the spring seal fishery, which brought men from all over the island to the harbour-front in hopes of securing a berth at sea. Fishermen from all over the world relied upon the Port of St. John’s as the only safe haven in the North Atlantic, and many foreign sailors became intimately acquainted with the people and geography of St. John’s. In particular, the annual visit of the Portuguese White Fleet helped strengthen a special cultural relationship that is still nurtured today.

Within the past three decades, the port has managed to reinvent itself as a major base for the oil industry, a remarkable transformation for a port that credited its existence to the salt fish trade for five centuries. Today, the Port of St. John’s has reinvented itself into more than just a shipping terminal supplying the entire island, but also as a major oil supply base in the north Atlantic.

Given that the first paved road across the island was not completed until 1965, this port served as the only transportation link to the outside world for many Newfoundlanders.

All of the digitized oral histories in the book have been donated to the Maritime History Archive (MHA). Pictured from left to right are Russ Carrigan, chairperson, board of directors, St. John’s Port Authority; Heather Wareham, archivist, MHA; Sean Hanrahan, president and CEO, SJPA; and Allan Byrne, editor, A Beautiful Sight.

All of the digitized oral histories in the book have been donated to the Maritime History Archive (MHA). Pictured from left to right are Russ Carrigan, chairperson, board of directors, St. John’s Port Authority; Heather Wareham, archivist, MHA; Sean Hanrahan, president and CEO, SJPA; and Allan Byrne, editor, A Beautiful Sight.

To mark the 50th Anniversary, the Port Authority has been looking back at their many accomplishments, tracing the changes that have taken place in this storied harbour. The result is a rich oral history project, edited by archivist Allan Byrne, now published as a collection of stories titled A Beautiful Sight: Stories from the Port of St. John’s. The thirteen informants interviewed range from politicians, port administrators and businessmen to fishermen, stevedores and harbour pilots.

The port of St. John’s is the birthplace of North America’s oldest and most beautiful city. It’s a great story.

Recommended Reading: A Beautiful Sight: Stories from the Port of St. John’s By: Allan Byrne,Flanker Press, St. John’s, NL September 2015

Recommended Web site: Please note that there are hundreds of incredible archival photographs of downtown St. John’s located at this site: http://www.abeautifulsight.ca/

St. John’s dressed for Christmas: Talking Shopping Downtown St. John’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnNQIJ4VUvI

“The Dancing Season in St. John’s”

Archival Moment

November 28, 1894

$_12In late November of 1894 a young clerical student challenged the Editor of the local St. John’s newspaper the Evening Telegram to encourage a debate about the merits of dancing.  The young clerical student wrote:

“I want to know whether it is right or wrong, and perhaps if a discussion on the subject were opened up, one would be better able to judge.”

A number of subscribers to the Evening Telegram took on the challenge and penned letters making their positions known and they had very definite opinions.

Elizabeth A. Nyle from her home on Freshwater Road, St. John’s was the first to enter the fray stating quiet categorically that she was quite opposed to dancing. She wrote:

“It (dancing) involves extravagance of dress, and too often a shocking indelicacy of dress likewise. It involves contacts and caresses of young men and women which stimulate sensual passions. It kindles salacious thoughts.  An evening spent in that way is not a recreation, it is a “revealing,” and ministers to vanity, frivolity, jealously and fleshy lusts , which war against the soul.”

Other letters to the Editor supported the notion of dancing. One woman writing under the pen name Minerva (the Roman goddess of wisdom and sponsor of arts) wrote:

“I should certainly say that there can be no possible harm in this innocent pastime, as dancing is one of the most pleasant ways of taking exercise. It suits all classes, old and young, the old folks almost becoming young again under its vigorous influence. … It certainly is the great key to social intercourse, unbending even the most rigid in their endeavor to keep up with the music.”

If you were to go out dancing in St. John’s in the 1890’s  the two most popular dances were the ‘Valse” and the “Minuet.”

The “Valse” was a relatively new dance in St. John’s and in 1894 considered “the dance”,  but  it seems “very few people knew how to dance it well.”  Today we know the “Valse”  as the Waltz . When  first introduced into the ballrooms of the world in the early years of the Nineteenth Century, it was met with outraged indignation, for it was the first dance where the couple danced in a modified Closed Position – with the man’s hand around the waist of the lady.

The “Minuet” was also very popular at the time it was described as “being very graceful and when seen from a distance looks very imposing.”

In November 1894 all of the “Assembly Halls”  in St. John’s were actively advertising for the “dancing season.” The West End Amusement Club was offering “dancing assembly’ every Wednesday night.  The British Hall offered “dancing assembly” every Thursday night.

In St. John’s, “Christmas dancing was the chief amusement ; in fact it is the “dancing season”  when old and young alike join in the sport, making old Father Xmas glad he came once more.”

It is likely that Mrs.  Elizabeth A. Nyle was not amused.

Recommended Archives:  Memorial University of Newfoundland – Archives and Special Collections. In 1982, the Centre for Newfoundland Studies and the Memorial University Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA), together with members of the local performing arts community, launched a joint project to collect primary material dealing with the history of the performing arts (theatre, music and dance) in Newfoundland and Labrador.  Archivist: Colleen Quigley.