As a permanent settlement of peoples of European and Mi'kmaq descent begins on
Doloman's Point.
In late May or early June of 1834
James and Susanna (nee Honeyburn)
Pritchett and their four children - Mary, Elizabeth, John, and James - landed at
Doloman's Point, Freshwater Bay to set up permanent residence there. James was
33 years old and his wife was 34. Over the next seventeen years they would have
another eight children - Anne Patience (1836), Job (1838), William Absolom
(1839), Caroline(1841), Susanna (1845), George Barnet (1846), Abraham (1849) and
Amy "Emma" (1851) - and lay down roots for a new settlement that would outgrow
itself causing its residents to abandoning the site to move to nearby Middle
Brook.
According to local lore, James' father, Job Pritchett, had
left England sometime around 1812 to escape the press gangs of that era. He
moved to Goose Bay, Bonavista South (in the Bloomfield area). Sometime after
that Job secured exclusive salmon fishing rights (maybe from Benjamin Lester and
Company of Trinity) to Middle Brook, the Gambo River, and Taverner's (Traverse)
Brook. That meant that every spring Job, with his son, James, and other workers
came into Freshwater Bay to prosecute that fishery. So James was very familiar
with Freshwater Bay and Doloman's Point when he moved there in 1834. James's
father, Job, had passed away the previous year (1780-1833) and now James was the
holder of his father's exclusive rights to fish the three rivers. More than
likely James and Susanna were accompanied in their move by the Barrow, Barry,
Inder, and Feltham families who worked for James. Available to these settlers
was not just the lucrative salmon fishery, but a potential logging and
saw milling industry. The abundance of wildlife in the Bay and up the three
rivers - beaver, martin, lynx, fox (for fur), and bear and caribou and ducks and
geese and hares for food -- also added to the attractiveness of the area. James
believed that with God's help (he was a very religious man) and with hard work,
they could build a new and prosperous settlement.
With James and his father and their fellow workers having
spent many summers (May to August) prior to 1834 in Freshwater Bay, it's likely
that when they settled in in 1834 they had
already built their houses and the requisite wharves and slipways and storage
sheds right on the nose of Doloman's Point. The land on which they built had
already been cleared of trees and brush by Beothucks and Mi'kmaq who had
preceded them into Freshwater Bay. The Beothuck were no more, the last of that
unfortunate race, Shawnandithit, having passed away in St. John's in 1829. The
Mi'kmaq, who had preceded them as permanent settlers in the Bay and had encamped
on Doloman's Point, now numbered a dozen so settled unto on reserve a few miles
away on the northern bank of the Middle Brook River. In 1857 there were six
houses on Doloman's Point and in Clay Cove. These houses belonged to George and
Jane Barrow, George and Diana Inder, Philip and Mary Feltham, John and Ruth
Pritchett, and a James Feltham along with, of course, James and
Susanna.
Since James was primarily a fisher of salmon he had to
build a cooperage to saw the staves needed to make tierces. Tierces were large
barrels that could hold 136kg (300 pounds) of pickled salmon. The packed salmon
he sold to merchants in St. John's who shipped them to Europe where it was a
favourite food for the merchants and aristocrats. For instance, in 1872 James'
sons - John, Abraham, William A., George B., and James - reported that they had
netted 21 tierces of salmon on the Gambo River that summer and had shipped them
in their own schooner to P. and L. Tessier of St. John's who paid them 4
pounds, and 10 shillings (around $120 in 2012 dollars). Meanwhile around this time the
Pritchetts established at the mouth of Traverse Brook a salmon cannery. The
cannery did not prosper for very long because by the late 1800s the number of
salmon entering the rivers in Freshwater Bay was in steep decline. The decline,
in hindsight, was inevitable. The Pritchetts, like all river lords in
Newfoundland having exclusive access to rivers, would tail out their nets at the
mouth of a river in the spring and hold them there until the annual run of
salmon up the rivers was over in July or August. They lifted these nets for one
day a week, Sunday, which meant that salmon could enter the river unimpeded only
one day a week. That one day proved to be insufficient to allow enough salmon to
enter the river to replace themselves in their annual spawning.
The Pritchetts and other residents, as the salmon declined,
turned to the forest industry to replace the salmon as a source of wealth. On
the rivers in which they had set their salmon nets they now built sawmills and
produced lumber for the insatiable lumber markets of St. John's and other large
communities in Conception Bay.
Census reports show that by 1884 there were 41 people in
Doloman's Point/Clay Cove. But, already, the Point was being overcrowded. Along
with the original families, James' sons were now grown and married and had to
have houses of their own. His son, John, had married Ruth Barry in 1855 and they
had built a house on Doloman's Point. His son, William A., had married Susannah
Bourne in 1863 and they were also living on Doloman's Point. His son, Abraham,
had married Rebecca Cross in 1866 and had built a house in Clay Cove. The
crowding on the point probably led James' son, George B., who married Rachel
White in 1872, to build their house in Middle Brook. Their action reflected the
reality of the time. Most men were now taking a good part, if not most of their
living from woods work and sawmill operations along the Middle and Traverse
Brooks and in and around these rivers' watersheds. So people were no longer
settling on the Point and other people already living there were starting to
move away. The first to leave was James Feltham. Within a few years the
Pritchetts had all moved to the south side of Middle Brook River while the
Inders, Barrows, and Felthams took to the north side. By 1894 Doloman's had been
totally resettled. Only the cemetery remained.
Susanna died at the age of 91 and was buried in the
cemetery at Doloman's Point beside her husband, James, who had passed away in
1858. Their son, James , passed away in the same year from the flu and was
buried beside his mother and father, leaving to mourn his wife, Amelia Barry,
with whom he had nine children. Also buried there were Arthur Lewis Pritchett,
Sarah Barry, John Madgwick, infant James Pritchett,et al.
Even before Doloman's Point had completely resettled George
B. and his wife Rachel (1890) had built a water-powered sawmill at Water Point
on the Middle Brook River. By 1892 George's brother, William A., with his wife,
Susanna (neeBourne), had also moved to Middle Brook South and were the
owners/operators of a water-powered saw mill on the Middle Brook River at the
Over Falls. And their brother, Abraham, and his wife, Rebecca, owned and
operated a sawmill on Traverse Brook as well as a general store in Middle
Brook. These three, along with their brother John, also continued to hold the
salmon rights which they had inherited from their father. By 1901 these four men
were part of the fifty families living in Middle Brook South who now had their
own church and school (Church of England). Meanwhile, across the River the
Inders moved into the sawmill business and the Barrows and Felthams worked in
the woods and in the mills. They became Salvationists and built their own church
and school.
In 1964the community of Middle Brook amalgamated with Dark
Cove and the combined community incorporated itself under the name of
"Riverwood". However, that name never took hold because nobody used it. But when
"Riverwood" amalgamated with Gambo on October 3, 1980, the amalgamated
communities took the name of Gambo. It stuck. Now, there is only Gambo
.
Church of England
Cemetery
This cemetery was declared a
historic place by the Gambo Town Council in 2011.
Although the aboriginal Beothucks and Mi'kmaq were frequent
visitors who encamped on this point and may have buried here their deceased, the
earliest known burial in this cemetery occurred, most likely, in April 1777. The
burial plot used was marked by a headstone that identified the deceased as a
nine year old boy named John Madgwick. Other than the information engraved on
the headstone nothing further is known about the boy, his family, the
circumstances of his death, and why he would have been buried here. What,
though, is very interesting is that the headstone was still standing and
decipherable in 1970(?) when a local Anglican clergyman, afraid it would
collapse and be buried under moss and grass, removed it from this site. After
being stored for a number of years in the Middle Brook Anglican Church it was
retrieved, cleaned up, the lettering restored, and erected outside the entry to
the church. It is still there today.
It is fitting to note that the founder of the Doloman's
Point settlement - James Pritchett is buried here. James, who settled
permanently on Doloman's Point in 1834, died here on December 19, 1858. He was
57 years old. Otto Tucker who was a Salvation Army teacher and cadet in Middle
Brook in the 1950 wrote down the inscription engraved on James Pritchett's
headstone which has since crumbled and has been covered with grass and
brush.
Another person known to be buried in this cemetery is Sarah
Barry. Sarah Barry was born in 1872 the daughter of George and Jane Barry who
were at the time living in Clay Cove. Sarah probably died as an
infant.
Another headstone that had already shattered when this
photo was taken in 2005 was that of Arthur Lewis Pritchett. The photo
illustrates that Arthur Lewis was the son of Abraham and Rebecca Pritchett of
Clay Cove. Arthur Lewis was born on October 1, 1882. He died in 1884.
Although there is no headstone remaining in this cemetery
to mark her spot, church burial records reveal that James's wife, Susanna
Honeyburn, is also buried here. She died on May 16, 1891 at the age of 91. Nine
days later her son James, age 57, died and was also buried in this
cemetery.
Who else might be buried in this cemetery is purely
speculative. For example, the records show that James Pritchett's father died in
1833 in Freshwater Bay but there has been nothing found to indicate where he was
buried. Is it possible he's also buried on Doloman's Point, or was he buried in
Goose Bay, Bonavista Bay? As well, there is no burial record for Abraham
Pritchett's first wife, Rebecca (nee Cross), for the Anglican Cemetery in Middle
Brook. It therefore is likely that she would have been buried here in Doloman's
Point. And since infant mortality was very high at this point in history it is
more than plausible that other children were buried in this cemetery.
