Place:St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

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NameSt. John's
Alt namesSaint John'ssource: Getty Vocabulary Program
St. John'ssource: WeRelate abbreviation
TypeCity
Coordinates47.55°N 52.667°W
Located inNewfoundland and Labrador, Canada     (1600 - )
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

St. John's is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland.

The city spans and is the easternmost city in North America (excluding Greenland).

Its name has been attributed to the belief that John Cabot sailed into the harbour on the Nativity of John the Baptist in 1497, although it is most likely a legend that came with British settlement. A more realistic possibility is that a fishing village with the same name existed without a permanent settlement for most of the 16th century. Indicated as São João on a Portuguese map from 1519, it is one of the oldest cities in North America. It was officially incorporated as a city in 1888. With a metropolitan population of approximately 212,579 (as of February 9, 2022), the St. John's Metropolitan Area is Canada's 20th-largest metropolitan area and the second-largest Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) in Atlantic Canada, after Halifax.

The city has a rich history, having played a role in the Seven Years' War, the American Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812. Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal in St. John's. Its history and culture have made it into an important tourist destination. St. John's was referred to as (Johnstown), in the poetry of Donnchadh Ruadh Mac Conmara (1715–1810), and among speakers of the Irish language in Newfoundland.

Contents

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Early history (1500–1799)

St. John's was used by fishermen setting up seasonal camps in the early 1500s. Sebastian Cabot declared in a handwritten Latin text in his original 1545 map that St. John's earned its name when he and his father, the Venetian explorer John Cabot, in the service of England, became the first Europeans to sail into the harbour, on the morning of 24 June 1494 (against British and French historians stating 1497), the feast day of Saint John the Baptist.[1] However, the locations of Cabot's landfalls are disputed. A series of expeditions to St. John's by Portuguese from the Azores took place in the early 16th century, and by 1540 French, Spanish and Portuguese ships crossed the Atlantic annually to fish the waters off the Avalon Peninsula. In the Basque Country, it is a common belief the name of St. John's was given by Basque fishermen because the bay of St. John's is very similar to the Bay of Pasaia in the Basque Country, where one of the fishing towns is called St. John (in Spanish, San Juan, and in Basque, Donibane).[2]

The earliest record of the location appears as São João on a Portuguese map by Pedro Reinel in 1519. When the English mariner John Rut visited St. John's in 1527, he found Norman, Breton and Portuguese ships in the harbour. On 3 August 1527, Rut wrote a letter to King Henry on the findings of his voyage to North America; this was the first known letter sent from North America. St. Jehan is shown on Nicolas Desliens's world map of 1541, and San Joham is found in João Freire's Atlas of 1546.

On 5 August 1583, an English Sea Dog, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, claimed the area as England's first overseas colony under Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I. There was no permanent population, however, and Gilbert was lost at sea during his return voyage, thereby ending any immediate plans for settlement.[2]

By 1620, the fishermen of England's West Country controlled most of Newfoundland's east coast. In 1627, William Payne, called St. John's "the principal prime and chief lot in all the whole country".

Sometime after 1630, the town of St. John's was established as a permanent community. Before this they were expressly forbidden by the English government, at the urging of the West Country fishing industry, from establishing permanent settlements along the English-controlled coast.

The population grew slowly in the 17th century: St. John's was Newfoundland's largest settlement when English naval officers began to take censuses around 1675.[3] The population grew in the summers with the arrival of migratory fishermen.[2] In 1680, fishing ships (mostly from South Devon) set up fishing rooms at St. John's, bringing hundreds of Irish men into the port to operate inshore fishing boats.[3]

The town's first significant defenses were likely erected due to commercial interests, following the temporary seizure of St. John's by the Dutch admiral Michiel de Ruyter in June 1665.

The inhabitants fended off a second Dutch attack in 1673, when it was defended by Christopher Martin, an English merchant captain. Martin landed six cannons from his vessel, the Elias Andrews, and constructed an earthen breastwork and battery near Chain Rock commanding the Narrows leading into the harbour. With only 23 men, the valiant Martin beat off an attack by three Dutch warships. The English government planned to expand these fortifications (Fort William) in around 1689, but construction didn't begin until after the French admiral Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville captured and destroyed the town in the Avalon Peninsula Campaign (1696). When 1500 English reinforcements arrived in late 1697, they found rubble where the town and fortifications had stood.

The French attacked St. John's again in 1705 (Siege of St. John's), and captured it in 1708 (Battle of St. John's), devastating civilian structures with fire on each instance.[3] The harbour remained fortified through most of the 18th and 19th centuries.[2] The final battle of the Seven Years' War in North America (known as the French and Indian War in the US) was fought in 1762, in St. John's.[2] Following a surprise capture of the town by the French early in the year, the British responded and, at the Battle of Signal Hill, the French surrendered St. John's to British forces under the command of Colonel William Amherst.[3]

In the late 1700s Fort Amherst and Fort Waldegrave were built to defend the harbour entrance.

The oldest European settlement in North America controversy

There has been some controversy regarding which European settlement is the oldest in North America. As mentioned above, while English fishermen had set up seasonal camps in St. John's in the 16th century, they were expressly forbidden by the English government, at the urging of the West Country fishing industry, from establishing permanent settlements along the English-controlled coast. As a result, the town of St. John's was not established as a permanent community until after the 1630s.[4] With respect to the oldest surviving permanent English settlements in North America, it was preceded by Jamestown, Virginia (1607), the Cuper's Cove colony at Cupids in Newfoundland (1610), St. George's, Bermuda (1612), and the Bristol's Hope colony at Harbour Grace in Newfoundland (1618). Each of these English settlements were far later than other European settlements in North America, such as St. Augustine, Florida established by Spain in 1565.

Modern history (1800–present)

The United Irish Uprising began with rumours in April 1800 that as many as 400 men took a secret oath of the Society of United Irishmen and rebelled against the British Army.

The 18th century saw major changes in Newfoundland: population growth, beginnings of government, establishment of churches, reinforcement of commercial ties with North America and development of the seal, salmon and Grand Banks fisheries. St. John's population grew slowly. Although it was primarily a fishing station, it was also a garrison, a centre of government and a commercial hub. St. John's served as a naval base during the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.[3]


Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal in St. John's on 12 December 1901 from his wireless station in Poldhu, Cornwall.[5] St. John's was the starting point for the first non-stop transatlantic aircraft flight, by Alcock and Brown in a modified Vickers Vimy IV bomber, in June 1919, departing from Lester's Field in St. John's and ending in a bog near Clifden, Connemara, Ireland. In July 2005, the flight was duplicated by American aviator and adventurer Steve Fossett in a replica Vickers Vimy aircraft, with St. John's International Airport substituting for Lester's Field (now an urban and residential part of the city).

During the Second World War, the harbour supported Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy ships that were engaged in anti-submarine warfare. It was the site of an American Army Air Force base, Fort Pepperrell, that was established as part of the "Lend-Lease" Destroyers for Bases Agreement between the United Kingdom and United States.[2] The base included several US-manned coast defence guns, and a Canadian-manned battery of two Lend-Lease 10-inch M1888 guns was at Fort Cape Spear. The base was transferred to Canadian control in 1960 and is now known as CFS St. John's. The Knights of Columbus Hostel fire in December 1942 saw 99 military and civilian lives lost.

St. John's, and the province as a whole, was gravely affected in the 1990s by the collapse of the northern cod fishery, which had been the driving force of the provincial economy for hundreds of years. After a decade of high unemployment rates and depopulation, the city's proximity to the Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose oil fields led to an economic boom that spurred population growth and commercial development. As a result, the St. John's area now accounts for about half of the province's economic output.

As of 2012, St. John's contained 21 National Historic Sites of Canada.

Fires

St. John's was destroyed by major fires in 1816, 1817, 1819, 1846 and 1892, when each time a large part of the city was destroyed. The most famous was the Great Fire of 1892.

On February 12, 1816:

...about eight o’clock, a fire broke out in a house in a part of the town in St. John’s in Newfoundland known by the name of the King’s Beach, and speedily communicated to the houses adjoining, and burnt with so much fury, that one hundred and twenty houses, the homes of about a thousand men, women, and children, were consumed before the conflagration was stayed.

There were two citywide fires in 1817 "known jointly as 'The Great Fire of 1817'. Then in 1819 fire "destroyed 120 houses".

There was a further major fire in 1846, which started at the shop of a cabinetmaker named Hamlin, located on George Street off Queen Street, when a glue pot boiled over. The fire spread along Water and Duckworth Streets destroying all of the buildings in its path aided by the large quantities of seal oil that were stored in the merchants' premises. The fire was also aided by an attempt to blow up a house on Water Street which scattered burning embers across the city.

The final major conflagration the nineteenth century began on the afternoon of July 8, 1892 atop Carter's Hill on Freshwater Road. Initially, the fire did not cause any widespread panic; however, a series of catastrophic coincidences caused the fire to spread and devour virtually all of the east end of the city, including much of its major commercial area, before being extinguished.

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This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.