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Fish and ships |
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Laying down roots
The North Virginia Company, headed by Sir Fernando Gorges was superseded by the New England Council in 1620, and in the ensuing years the company attempted to finance the colonising of the area by taxing the expanding fishing industry. As a result of a hostile reaction from fishermen and merchants, this scheme failed.
Gorges retained the control of northern New England and according to Charles M Andrews, a 19th Century historian, “more persons originating in Devon and Cornwall, and perhaps Somerset, were living on the seacoast of Maine and New Hampshire, and on the adjacent islands, than from all other counties of England”.
In 1631, Robert Trelawney, a merchant ship owner and two other Plymouth based merchants obtained a “land grant” to establish a “plantation” on Richmond Island, in the Gulf of Maine, Newfoundland. John Winter had also been a Plymouth mariner, and in 1633, was introduced to Trelawney and employed as his plantation manager. Winter settled on Richmond Island and brought his wife and daughter from England in 1636, where they remained there till his death.
Lester and Company premises at Trinity - typical of the Newfoundland stations
© Gordon Handcock |
Trelawney employed around 60 men, all from the parishes neighbouring the River Yealm in Devon, east of Plymouth. Many of these men were married and during their three year fishing contracts living on the island arranged for some of their wages to be sent back to their wives. Trelawney’s trade with the Native Americans was principally with fish, but he found it of little success.
John Winter, therefore, was instructed to diversify. He grew crops, raised cattle, goats and pigs, which all showed greater success. He also exported wooden staves for making barrels on “Sack Ships” [trade ships] which were destined for the Atlantic Islands, Spain and England. He was even engaged in shipbuilding too, employing a number of house and ships’ carpenters, including Plymouth shipwright Sampson Jope.
Winter’s son-in-law took over the supervision of the island after the deaths of both Trelawney and Winter. The relationship with Devon became fragile as the island became more autonomous, and the county never regained its influence, but it is said that locations such as Richmond Island, Torbay and Devon Island were “Devon Outposts” in the heart of the New World.
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