Tag Archives: St. John’s

The danger of walking on the streets of St. John’s

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

January 15, 1850

Photo Credit: the Rooms Provincial Archives: A 35-61; Snow Banks on Military Road, Colonial Building in Background

Photo Credit: The Rooms Provincial Archives: A 35-61; Snow Banks on Military Road, Colonial Building in Background.  [ca 1910]

The complaints of the residents of St. John’s about snow clearing and allowing pedestrian’s safe passage on the streets are not new.  As early as 1850 the town now city of St. John’s has been trying to negotiate the delicate balance between walkers and drivers.

An Editorial in the Morning Post and Shipping Gazette a St. John’s newspaper on January 15, 1850 speaks about the difficulty of getting about the town.  The editorial reads:

“Solely from a desire to preserve the well-being of all classes in the community, we call the attention of the Police to the extreme carelessness manifested by the drivers of vehicles of almost every kind, in neglecting to provide them with a sufficiency of bells to give the foot passenger timely notice to move out of their way.

No person in St. John’s need be reminded of the difficulty, and often danger, of perambulating the streets of this town during the winter months ….

The Police would do well to order that all vehicles, both sleighs and slides, whether drawn by horses or dogs, shall be amply provided with bells  to give timely notice of their approach; an order which, we hope will not  only be given, but strictly attended to and rigidly enforced.”

Pedestrians, if you are preambulating the streets,  wear light or reflective clothing.  These drivers need to see you!

Recommended Archival Collection: At The Rooms Provincial Archives Division read the old newspaper accounts that give great insight into the events of the past.  http://www.therooms.ca/archives/

Recommended Web Site: City of St. John’s Snow Clearing: http://www.stjohns.ca/living-st-johns/streets-traffic-and-parking/snow-clearing

Recommended to Read: Rain, Drizzle and Fog: Newfoundland Weather by Sheilah Roberts. Boulder Publications,  2014.    Newfoundlanders love to talk about the weather. And why wouldn’t they? The province is known for its great gales, fierce blizzards, destructive glitter storms, blizzards, and hurricanes. Sheilah Roberts delves into the archives, to find stories of Newfoundland weather. Reports from 400 years of Newfoundland and Labrador weather are interspersed with traditional weather lore, snippets of science, and dozens of fascinating photos. With a foreword by CBC’s Newfoundland and Labrador weather expert, Ryan Snodden.

 

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 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.

Throw snow in the middle of the street

February 20, 1880

Archival Moment

Throw the snow in St. John's into the streets?

Merrymeeting Road, St. John’s, February 1921.

Great debates have been had in St. John’s about snow and what to do with snow.

There was a time in St. John’s, when residents were encouraged to throw snow from their sidewalks into the middle of the street.  Not only were they encouraged to do this, they were often ordered to do this. The St. John’s newspaper, The Evening Telegram reported in February 1880:

“a policeman called on the various dwellings (in St. John’s)  and ordered that all snow lying before their doors should be thrown into the middle of the street.”

One resident of Cochrane Street, St. John’s was not very happy with this arrangement. In February 1880 he wrote to the St. John’s newspaper:

“In most instances the order of the policeman to throw snow in the middle of the street was complied, with the result of which is that today sleighs driving up and down Cochrane Street encroach on the sidewalks to the danger of pedestrians.”

It appears that those with horse and sleigh wanted to take the path of least resistance and rather than take to the center of the road (now covered with mounds of snow) were more inclined to take the cleared sidewalks.

The frustrated resident of Cochrane Street wrote:

 “If the magistrates have ordered the snow to be cleared from the sidewalks, it would be only right that they should cause all sleighs to keep to the center of the road.”

The policemen and the magistrates did begin to listen to the residents and actively pursued convicting carmen who were driving on the sidewalks.  Judge Daniel Woodley Prowse took no sympathy on those that went before him in his court with the charge of ‘driving on the sidewalks.’  Among the many that were convicted  were Patrick MacDonald of Portugal Cove Road  and Matthew Doyle of Freshwater Road who were before the good judge  in the court for “driving the quadrupeds (horses) on the sidewalk” were each fined  fifty cents and costs.

Judge Prowse was squarely on the side of the pedestrians as having rights above all other traffic!

Oh, how times have changed!

Recommended Archival Collection: At The Rooms Provincial Archives Division read the old newspaper accounts that give great insight into the events of the past.  http://www.therooms.ca/archives/

Recommended Web Site: City of St. John’s Snow Clearing: http://www.stjohns.ca/living-st-johns/streets-traffic-and-parking/snow-clearing

Recommended to Read:  One for the History Books: The Winter of 2000–01 in St. John’s, Newfoundland by Bruce Whiffen. http://www.easternsnow.org/proceedings/2002/021_Whiffen.pdf

Definition:  Carman, a driver of a horse-drawn vehicle used for transporting goods.

(If you know the street location and or the approximate date of this photograph please contact me.)

The Basilica Cathedral Bells

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

January 1906

Basilica Bells on the steps of the Basilica Cathedral 1906.

Basilica Bells on the steps of the Basilica Cathedral 1906.

If you were walking past Roman Catholic Cathedral (now Basilica) in St. John’s during this week in January of 1906 you might have been curious enough to approach the steps of the church to take a close look at the Joy Bells that sat on the steps of the Cathedral awaiting shipment to Ireland. They were being sent to the famous Murphy foundry on James Street, Dublin, where they were originally cast.

The bells in their day were considered some of the best in the new world.

The bell known as “St. John” built in 1850 was the largest ever cast in Ireland at that time, and won a Gold Medal at the Dublin Exhibition of Irish Manufacturers. The bell, a massive piece, weighs nearly two tons. Upon its arrival in St. John’s in February, 1851, it was hauled by hand to the Basilica, and installed in the East Tower.

The bells sitting on the steps of the Cathedral in January 1906 were made by Murphy, the celebrated Bell maker at Dublin in 1854.

Basilica Bells 2In the tradition of the Catholic Church each of the bells was christened and named before being installed.   In addition to having its own name each bell when originally installed had its own sound or personality.

The bells are:

Mary – 1854 – octave D

Patrick – 1854 -octave E

Bonaventure – 1863 – F sharp

Michael -1906

Matthew – 1906

Anthony – 1906

Francis – 1906

James – 1906

These five bells completed the peal, viz.:  G A B C (sharp) and D (octave)

Following their installation in 1906 the bells rang without interruption until 1988 at which time the cluster of bells was removed from the west tower of the Basilica because of structural weakness in the tower. The bells were placed in storage on site at the Basilica Cathedral. Following years of silence, the bells were again re-installed ringing out on (June 9, 2009) at noon, the first time in over twenty years.

Today you can hear the bells being rung on special “feast days” or special occasions like a wedding.  The largest bell “St. John” rings at noon every day.

Recommended Reading: Tour of the Basilica Cathedral, St. John’s:  http://www.thebasilica.ca/index.cfm?load=page&page=186

Recommended Website: After 21 years, the bells have been reinstalled in the bell tower of the Basilica of St. John the Baptist in St. John’s.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n-ht7bQ8zA 

New Year’s Levee

JANUARY 1, 1859

“The Finest Room in the Colony”

The Basilica Museum Library. The “Finest Room in the Colony.”

There was a tradition in St. John’s that encouraged the leading citizens of the town to host a New Years Day Levee.  This levee was a reception that was held early in the afternoon of New Years Day, typically at the residence of the host.  Attending these levee’s was an annual ritual in the town.

The first recorded levée in Canada was held on January 1st, 1646 in the Château St. Louis by Charles Huault de Montmagny, Governor of New France (later Québec).  In addition to shaking hands and wishing a Happy New Year to citizens presenting themselves at the Château, the Governor informed guests of significant events in the Mother Country, as well as the state of affairs within the colony.  This tradition is carried on today within The Commonwealth in the form of The Queen’s New Year’s Message.

The Levée tradition was continued by British Colonial Governors in Canada, and subsequently by Governors General and Lieutenant Governors, and continues to the present day.

One of the leading citizens that was expected to host a levee was the Roman Catholic bishop. Typically citizens would call upon the bishop on New Years Day at the Episcopal Library (now the home of the Basilica Museum) to wish him a Happy New Year. Persons attending, dressed in their finest, would upon arrival stand in cue, sign a guest book and would then be introduced to the bishop.  The introduction would be followed by refreshments.

In 1859 Bishop John Thomas Mullock of St. John’s hosted his New Years Day Levee in the newly established Episcopal Library. Among the guests invited on this day was Lt-Col. R. B. McCrea, a Battery Commander and later Garrison Commander at Fort Townsend (now the site of The Rooms.)

McCrea was most impressed by the levee and the newly established library.   Ten years later in 1869 McCrea wrote a book about his experiences in Newfoundlandentitled “Lost Amid The Fogs: Sketches of Life in Newfoundland, England’s Ancient Colony.”  He wrote about the New Years Day levee

“Then to His Lordship (Bishop John Thomas  Mullock) we paid our respects and congratulations as was right and proper. A hearty reciprocation and a glass of champagne were his return for the compliments, to say nothing of taking us around his noble library, the finest room in the Colony.”

McCrea was impressed by the library but he was not so impressed by the living quarters of the bishop and priests. He wrote:

“This reception room was handsome, adorned with statuary from Italy, but for himself and the priests that lived with him, the little room below with its deal chairs and common delf would have been probably scorned by a layman. So strange is the contrast which presents in the attributes of his daily life and the profession he upholds.”

On Thursday, 01 January 2015 from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m., His Honour the Honourable Frank F. Fagan, Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador and Her Honour Patricia Fagan will welcome members of the public to the traditional New Year’s Levee at Government House.

Recommended Reading: “Lost Amid The Fogs: Sketches of Life in Newfoundland, England’s Ancient Colony.” 

Recommended Website: The History of the Basilica: http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca/sgc-cms/expositions-exhibitions/basilique-basilica/en/index.htm

The Oldest Man in the World is a Newfoundlander

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

June 18, 2013

James Foster McCoubrey "The oldest man in the world."
James Foster McCoubrey
“The oldest man in the world.”

James Foster McCoubrey originally from St. John’s, Newfoundland is 111 years old and became the oldest man in the world upon the death of a 116-year-old man in Japan last week.

McCoubrey was born in St. John’s on September 13, 1901.  He was baptized at St. Mary the Virgin Church, St. John’s on September 29, 1901.

The baptismal register identifies his father as George Andrew McCoubrey  and his mother as Jennie Isobel (Chafe). The family lived on Water Street.

On May 23, 1904, McCoubrey lost his father, the second engineer on the Virginia Lake, a coastal mail streamer running from St. John’s to St. Anthony. His father obituary reads that  “he was ill for about three months of pneumonia caused by a heavy cold.”

George A. McCoubrey left to mourn his wife Jennie and two children James and Charles.   He is buried in the Old Anglican cemetery on the shores of Quidi Vidi Lake in a family plot.

James moved with his mother and brother Charles to Halifax, Nova Scotia shortly following the death of his father.

The family later relocated to Cambridge, Massachusetts. The state  of Massachusetts is known to most Newfoundlanders as the ‘Boston States’ and one of the favored destinations for Newfoundlanders in the early 1900’s seeking work.  It is likely that that James and his family would be joining family already established in the Boston area. The  1915 Commonwealth of Boston census  reports that 13,269 residents of the Boston area claimed Newfoundland as their place of birth.

McCoubrey married in 1929 and worked as a motorcycle insurance salesman. Then he got into the stove burner business until he retired at the age of 62.

Mr. McCoubrey has one daughter, Mrs. Patricia Salveson. He currently lives in Walnut Creek, California in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Mr. McCoubrey is a member of an exclusive club known as the “Supercentenarians” His membership in the club was verified by the Gerontology Research Group. Founded in 1990,  the GRG  are physicians, scientists, and engineers dedicated to the quest to slow and ultimately reverse human aging within the next 20 years. The group is the world authority on validating Supercentenarians, persons 110 years old or older.

Mr. McCoubrey will have to keep an eye to the Guinness World Book curse. The Japanese gentleman (Kimura) who has moved on at age 116 is just the latest to die after being picked by Guinness as the world’s oldest person.

Significant Events in 1901, the year that James Foster McCoubrey was born in Newfoundland.

January 1, 1901:   The world celebrates the beginning of the 20th century.

January 1 The birth of Pentecostalism at a prayer meeting at Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas.

January 22 Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom dies at age 81.

Jan 10th – Oil discovered in Texas

January 28 – Baseball’s American League declares itself a Major League

February 6 – First public telephones at railway stations in Paris.

Safety Razor , King C. Gillette and William Emerson Nickerson found the American Safety Razor Company to begin mass producing Safety Razors.

April 25 – New York State becomes the first to require automobile license plates.

May 23rd – Ottawa Mint Act receives Royal Assent

Jun 2nd – Benjamin Adams arrested for playing golf on Sunday (NY)

Jun 24th – 1st exhibition by Pablo Picasso, 19, opens in Paris

August 30 – Hubert Cecil Booth patents an electric vacuum cleaner in the United Kingdom.

October 2 – The British Royal Navy’s first submarine.

Oct 12th – Theodore Roosevelt renames “Executive Mansion,” “The White House”

November 25 – Auguste Deter is first examined by German psychiatrist Dr Alois Alzheimer, leading to a diagnosis of the condition that will carry Alzheimer’s name.[3]

December 10 – The first Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Stockholm on the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.

December 12 – Guglielmo Marconi receives the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, sent from  England to Newfoundland.

Recommended Archival Collection: The Rooms Provincial Archives:  Marriage, Baptismal Registers. St. Mary the Virgin Parish, St. John’s.

Recommended Website:  GRG: Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers dedicated to the quest to slow and ultimately reverse human aging. http://www.grg.org/

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.

CAPTAIN JAMES COOK IN NEWFOUNDLAND WATERS

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

September 1762

Photo Credit: The Rooms Provincial Archives: MG 85.10; The harbour of Trepassey with Mutton and BiscayBays; The road and harbour of Placentia; St. Mary’s Harbour

In August and September of 1762 if you were sailing about Newfoundland and happened into the harbours of Placentia, Harbour Grace, Carbonear or St. John’s it is likely that you would have met James Cook.

Captain James Cook, (1728-1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy.  He may be best known internationally for his work in the Pacific Ocean, Australia, the Hawaiian Islands, and New Zealand, but it was in Newfoundland where he cut his surveying teeth!! 

James Cook first came to Newfoundland in the summer of 1762 giving six years of his life over to the survey of Newfoundland waters.

When he arrived on our shores, most of the island was known only in shadowy outline. When he left he had scientifically surveyed almost all the unknown coasts. His charts with detailed sailing directions and remarks on suitable anchoring, watering and wooding places would serve well into the 20th century.

Governor Graves of Newfoundland was so impressed by the work of Cook that he reported in 1763 that Cook’s attention to detail was “beyond my description.”  He continued:

“I have no doubt in a year or two more of seeing a perfect good chart of Newfoundland and an exact survey of most of the good harbors, in which there is not perhaps a part of the world that more abounds”.

Two hundred and fifty years after Cook’s arrival in Newfoundland waters it is time to celebrate his accomplishments.

You are invited to view the charts created by Cook on exhibit at the Rooms Provincial Archives and to join the Newfoundland Historical Society for the Cook Symposium.  The opening lecture of the Symposium and reception will be held at The Rooms on Friday September 28 from 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.  Please note that that the reception will begin at 7:00 PM with a lecture from Dr. Olaf Jenzen to follow at 8:00 p.m. 

The Symposium will continue at 10:00 a.m.  Saturday morning  September 29th at Memorial University’s Engineering Building. Parking is free and located in parking AREA 16, adjacent to the building.

The symposium is free and registration is not required. Come for any or all of the sessions.

For more information on the Cook Symposium:  www.nlhistory.ca.

Recommended Website: To view some of Cook’s Charts go to:  http://www.heritage.nf.ca/exploration/cooks_charts.html

Recommended Exhibit: Visit the Rooms Provincial Archives Reference Room where five reproductions of the Cook charts are on exhibit.

THE REGATTA DAY TUNE

Photo Credit: The Rooms Provincial Archives Division: B22-55 Photographic reproduction of a published music sheet. Credited to Francis Forbes, Chief Justice of Newfoundland (1816-1822)

The Banks of Newfoundland –  The Regatta Day Tune

Francis Forbes’s, Chief Justice of Newfoundland (1816-1822) and later First Chief Justice of Australia (1823-1837) is credited with writing “The Banks of Newfoundland”. Most would immediately recognize the tune as “Up the Pond,” or  “Dum-Da-Diddely.” 

The music is a piece steeped in the tradition of North America’s oldest continuing sporting event the annual Royal St. John’s Regatta. The tune is traditionally played as the crews pass the bandstand on their return to the stakes, though it has been played at the start of the races as well.

In addition to this connection with the Regatta, “The Banks of Newfoundland” is the Regimental March for the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.

“The Banks of Newfoundland” enjoyed a populist appeal in nineteenth-century Newfoundlandthat would have likely astounded Justice Forbes.

Processions, festivals, dinners, soirees, and the like were frequently enlivened with renditions of the popular tune, a tradition that began in the 1820s .

Recommended Archival Collection:  At the Rooms, Provincial Archives Division see B22 -55:  The Banks of Newfoundland: A Dance composed by Judge Forbes.Boston: published by Oliver Ditson,115 Washington St. [photographic reproduction]

 Recommended Reading: Dictionary of Canadian Biography:  http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=3386

 Recommended Reading: A Newfoundland Songbook – A Collection of Music by Historic Newfoundland Composers, 1820-1942“, compiled and annotated by Paul G. Woodford: Creative Publishers,St. John’s (1987).

Recommended to Listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNVQdwzMKpA