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By the early
1800s Trinity had become the main trade center on the northeast coast
of Newfoundland where the Poole merchants had transformed the
trans-Atlantic fishery into an industry with Trinity Harbour as its
base.
Trinity
had grown to become a place which supported a population which
included several social classes based upon status. There were the
small social elite, the upper class, which came from the chief agents
of the merchant firms, the doctor and clergyman, customs and naval
officers and Justices of the Peace; the middle class which consisted
of clerks, specialized tradesmen (blacksmiths, coopers and shipwrights
etc.), master mariners, schooner skippers and independent planters
with the third class being the largest and consisting of lower paid
merchant servants and dependent planters and shoremen. These people
were often tied to a single merchant firm usually by being in debt and
were disadvantaged by having to accept advances of food, clothing and
fishing gear by promising to provide future payment in kind through
their catches at prices that were established by the merchants.
The
majority of people that resided in Trinity were of the upper and
middle class with most of the lower class citizens residing in the
surrounding communities. Trinity was like a modern day service centre
where people came to purchase/trade their goods or seek out a
professional service such as seeing the clergy or doctor. Most of the
people who settled in these communities were brought out by the fish
merchants such as the Whites, Lester, Jeffrey and Street, Slade’s and
others. Examples of those brought out by the Slade’s for their various
establishments around the province can be seen throughout this virtual
exhibit which will provide you with an idea of the size of their
establishments and the wages being paid. Those that came would sign on
for a couple of years work and would often remain in Newfoundland
after the period of their servitude thus contributing to the growth of
the permanent settlement.
Trinity
being the main trade center on the northeast coast they were then
distributed to smaller trade centers where the merchants were
established such as at Heart’s Content, Catalina, New Perlican,
Bonavista and Greenspond and where much of the fish, oil, seal skins,
lumber and other products produced on the north east coast were
collected for transhipment.
In the
early 1830s Trinity reached plateaus in both population size and
commercial activity which were not significantly changed for the next
several decades, indeed perhaps not until the late 19th
century.
The
censuses taken between 1836 and 1891 indicates that the population of
Trinity Harbour reached a level of about 1250 persons in 1836 and
remained at virtually the same figure until the 1860s when it went
slightly over the 1400 mark, and then remained at this level until the
end of the century.
In the
1830s Trinity remained a relatively busy port, and apart from the
movement of boats and schooners within the bay and on fishing and
sealing voyages normally had 70 to 100 vessels entering and clearing
annually on coasting voyages. Links with St. John’s had become
especially important and during the main sailing season schooners,
brigs, yachts and cutters were arriving from or going to the capital
almost daily. In fact many ocean going vessels employed by Garland’s
and Slade’s whether inbound or outbound normally now touched at St.
John’s, whereas in previous times most foreign sailings came directly
into and went directly out of Trinity. Among the ports to which fish
collected by the Garland’s and Slade’s was being dispatched in the
1830s were Lisbon, Valencia, Cadiz, Bilboa, Leghorn, Gibraltor,
Naples, and Civitavecchia. West Indian fish was marketed mainly
through St. John’s. Some fish, but mostly salmon, seal skins and oil
went to Poole and London. Meanwhile salt was imported from Spain,
Portugal and Liverpool. Dry goods and fishing gear came in from Poole
and St. John’s. St. John’s also supplied West Indian goods and
foodstuffs though flour, pork and butter came from Hamburg in Germany
and Cork in Ireland.
By 1850
the trend towards the centralization in St. John’s was well advanced.
In Trinity the Slade’s survived but their share of trade was declining
and they finally went insolvent in 1861. Robinson and Brooking
operated the Garland premises, but they also reduced the volume of
trade and allowed the wharves and stores to fall into a state of
disrepair. By 1869 both the Garland and Slade estates in Trinity had
fallen into the hands of one firm, Walter Grieve & Co., of St. John’s.
Grieve purchased the Slade premises at an auction and installed
Alexander Warren Bremner his partner as agent. In 1869 Grieve also
took a lease on the Garland estate. Under new owners a large part of
the Slade estate was allowed to go to ruin. Grieve and Bremner
apparently used it mainly for landing seal pelts and the processing of
seal oil. Meanwhile the Garland property was used for fish storage,
retail trade and the residence of the local manager, and buildings
which had previously been used for the same purposes on the Slade
plantation were abandoned.
The Slade
family was one of the predominant families in Newfoundland and
Labrador that were involved in the fishing trade and it is through
this virtual exhibit that their business and family history will be
explored. Details of their business, the daily happenings at the
headquartered business in Trinity, weather and other tidbits of
information will be revealed through the diaries that were kept by
their company agent, William Kelson.
Source: The Origin and
Development of Trinity up to 1900 by Dr. Gordon Handcock,
Department of Geography, Memorial University of Newfoundland, May 1981
pgs 49-51, 80-82 and 92.
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Biographical Sketch
History
of the Business
About the Diaries
Enter the
Diaries
Acknowledgements
Education
Copyright
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