As Chair of the Board of Directors and on behalf of the Executive of the Conception Bay Museum, I would like to sincerely acknowledge the hard work and determination shown by our Directors and other volunteers throughout the years and, in particular, during the 2019 season. We have accomplished much during that time. A list of successes would be far too cumbersome to post. Your dedication to our constituent clientele has been phenomenal by any measure. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your utmost support. I look forward to working with you during this coming season when I am certain to find you all safe and healthy.

– Patrick J. Collins, Chair

Well, here it is, as hinted on our social media yesterday: Gord Pike’s compendious ‘Quodlibets’ columns, digitized in full. Gord Pike serialized the history of his hometown and the Baccalieu Trail (Conception Bay North and Trinity Bay South) from 1988-2000; these short articles found a home in The Compass, the region’s local newspaper, and provided a fascinating glimpse of the area’s long history. Gord’s ‘Quodlibets’ series featured over 300+ columns!

In addition to this long-running series, Gord maintained a very active interest in his community, Harbour Grace, where he served several terms on municipal council, chaired the town’s historical society, and maintained a rigorous heritage designation program. He helped guide various community research and restoration projects, such as the Bennett’s Lane Roman Catholic Cemetery and, memorably, the Harbour Grace Railway Station, which was converted to a museum that still bears his name.

Note on the formatting: For the most part, each article has a text PDF and JPG copy. The PDFs are simply the text of each article. The JPGs have been scanned in 600 dpi and feature the original clippings from The Compass, with pictures, captions, etc., when present. For the the text PDFs, simply click the hyperlink of the title (that is, the bit in quotation marks). For the clippings in JPG format, click “Original”; or if the article had to be spliced into sections due to sizing, click on the various “parts.” There may be some errors right now, as this digitization was just finished. (The formatting may change later.) Also, some original clippings are skewed due to the materials themselves, some of which were unevenly pasted to paper backing.

Visit our ‘Resources’ tab  or the Town of Harbour Grace’s website to peruse this virtual feature:

• Link: ‘Quodlibets’: Histories by Gord Pike (1988-2000)

✅ That’s your weekend reading sorted.

Enjoy and please share!

Pictured: Water St, Harbour Grace, looking west, ca. 1941.

Photo courtesy Tony Galway.

 

Pictured: Water St, Harbour Grace, looking west, ca. 1900. Picture taken near the bottom of LeMarchant St. Notice the drinking fountain in the bottom right corner; these fountains were prevalent throughout town and still exist in some quarters, including the Conception Bay Museum park, Veteran’s Memorial Park, and outside Victoria Manor.

Photo courtesy Conception Bay Museum archives.

The failure of the Commercial Bank of Newfoundland and the Union Bank of Newfoundland on December 10, 1894, put the island on the verge of financial collapse. On December 12, Thomas Fyshe, Cashier of the Bank of Nova Scotia, informed his Board of Directors of the suspension of Newfoundland’s banks. Two days later, two officers of the Bank, David Waters, the Bank’s Inspector, and John A. McLeod, a relieving agent, boarded a ship for St. John’s. Arriving in St. John’s on December 16, the two opened the Bank of Nova Scotia for business five days later.

Business progressed so quickly that a second branch opened in Harbour Grace on February 21, 1895. McLeod served as its first agent and went on to become President and Chairman of the Bank. This first Bank of Nova Scotia was constructed on the south side of Water Street. However, fire destroyed this building in 1910, and the bank moved to a new location on the north side of Water Street, just across the street from its former residence. Originally constructed in 1887, this brick building served as the Bank of Nova Scotia in Harbour Grace for 68 years (1910-1978).

The bank was housed on the ground floor, which featured a high, 16-foot ceiling, with the second storey serving as an apartment for the bank manager.

Thirty-four years later, another devastating fire—the third ‘Great Fire’ of Harbour Grace—destroyed much of the downtown area on August 17, 1944. Luckily, this bank was spared its former’s fate, one of the few buildings still standing in this area of town.

In 1978, the Bank moved to a new home, just east of its former building (now the Town Hall). After this move, the building served as an office for Babb Construction Ltd for years. As a major firm in Conception Bay, Babb Construction built the former liquor store, Manpower and Immigration Building, and new Bank in Harbour Grace; in Carbonear, they built the swimming pool. Other projects included the Carbonear bypass road and various municipal water and sewer initiatives.

After sitting vacant for years, and despite efforts to save the structure, the building was eventually torn down in 1997. Though it was offered to the Town at no charge, the municipality did not have the estimated $60,000 needed to restore the structure. Despite being one of the oldest commercial buildings left on Water Street post-1944, it never received heritage protection under any municipal or provincial designation program.

Pictured: Downtown Water Street, Harbour Grace, ca. 1966. Visible in photo: Sinyard’s Pharmacy, Goodwin’s Dental Clinic, S.W. Moores Memorial Park, Pike’s Hotel, Payne House.

Photo courtesy Steve Payne.

Pictured: Four children sledding near the railway tracks, near Minnie Munn’s Cut, Harbour Grace, ca. 1910.

Photo courtesy Gordon G. Pike Railway Museum archives.

Related: Digging out the train, ca. 1900.

Pictured: Truck carrying fish casks from James A. Garland’s cooperage, Point of Beach, Harbour Grace, 1947.

Garland’s cooperage was once described as “one of the busiest firms in Harbour Grace.” Forty-five employees manufactured herring, cod oil, and berry barrels; fish casks and drums; salmon tierces; oil casks; Coca-Cola boxes; and a host of other wood containers carrying Newfoundland products around the world.

One of Garland’s main customers was William Azariah Munn, a leading producer of medicinal cod liver oil, whose production plant was adjacent to Garland’s cooperage. In the words of James’s son Charles, the firm “supplied [Munn’s] with thousands and thousands of barrels, each one with a tin liner. I suppose we made 160 or 170 barrels a day.”

Photo courtesy The Evening Telegram, September, 1947.

Pictured: Looking down Bannerman St, toward the old General Post Office and Strapp’s Pharmacy (right), ca. 1930. Built in the early 1910s, the old Post Office was a landmark building in downtown Harbour Grace, visible in many photographs from the first half of the twentieth century. Besides a mail and telegraph office, the grand building contained the Avalon Health Unit, the Harbour Grace Water Co., and police office.

The building was destroyed in the third ‘Great Fire’ of Harbour Grace on August 17, 1944.

Photo courtesy Jane Lynch.