I've been reading the book " A History of Newfoundland
from English, Colonial and Foreign Records" by D. W. Prowse. The book
itself is the second edition and was published in 1896. It includes some detail
back to the late 1500s when there were only native inhabitants and seasonal
fishing by Icelanders, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Spanish, and the British.
Then as history has it, by the 1600s, there were shipping manifests and the
like providing much more detail about the British and French establishing settlements
around the coastline. In essence, Newfoundland waters were a fish basket for western
Europe.
As newcomers to the Island, we have an interest in the
country's history and that of the Rose Blanche area, so we're always on the
lookout for bits and pieces. We've heard stories from neighbours about a
community on Cains Island, visible just outside our window. There was a
schoolhouse and 20 or so houses with no power or road access, but occupied until
they were moved as part of the relocation program in the 1960s.
The outport of Petite, a couple of kilometers east of here, was
also relocated. Today, the ghost town is very much as it was when vacated. This
past summer, a group of volunteers from Rose Blanche were busy restoring the
church as a monument to those that lived there.
Katie-Lew herself is over 100 years old, being built in the
early 1900s; so as we renovate, we've been keeping an eye open for relics from
her past. Last week, when we opened up one interior wall, we found the names of
the previous owners, Lewis and Kathleen. They were scrawled on a piece of
framing installed during a relatively recent renovation in the 1980s. The
inside of another wall was covered with newspaper from 1954.
Today, I was digging around the foundation in an effort to improve
the drainage, and found an old coin. It's a hair bigger than a Canadian Quarter,
a little smaller than a Loonie, and appears to be made of a copper based alloy. It's
badly corroded, very thin, a little concave on the heads' side and convex on
the other. Both sides seem to have a patterned ring of swirls and flowers
around the perimeter. There's a woman's face on one side, while on the tails'
side, there's only enough detail to feed the imagination as to the nationality,
date and denomination.
Tomorrow, we'll be opening up an exterior wall to
investigate installing a larger window for a better view of Crow Cove. If we're
observant, it'll not only lead to a better view of the Cove, but will serve as another
window into the past.
Click here for the postscript to this story - A Priceless Treasure
Click here for the postscript to this story - A Priceless Treasure