Stones start to tell a story in Ferryland’s old cemeteries

By Chad Feehan
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
December 15, 2023 Edition

The Colony of Avalon archaeological site in Ferryland was home to many pleasant discoveries in 2023, but also a number of “sad realities” according to the folks who manage the foundation during its annual general meeting last weekend.
Dr. Barry Gaulton, a MUN Professor of Archaeology and the head of the dig at the Colony, detailed the discovery of a root cellar as being among the more interesting finds this past season.

Returning to a previously explored ditch, Gualton’s team discovered deposits of wooden boards with nails, round logs, and old medicine bottles.
Initially, they theorized the area to be a “privy,” more commonly referred to as an outhouse.
“I know it sounds disgusting to most people, but to archaeologists it’s fantastic stuff,” he said.
As work progressed throughout the summer, team member Neil Jordan found a “tremendous amount of materials,” including wine bottles, coke bottles, fine china, a glass goblet, teacup fragments, a leather boot, animal bones, and Gaulton’s favorite discovery, a writing slate.
After determining the underground feature in which the items were found measured some 7’ x 9’ in dimension, Gaulted surmised the area was a root cellar that was later used as a trash pit.
“It looks like this archeological mystery is solved, and I’m hoping this collection will inform a future MA (Masters of Archaeology) project,” Gaulton said. “It’s a wonderful assemblage from the late 19th and early 20th century, a part of ferryland history that we don’t typically focus on.”
A second excavation area of note was a builders trench, located behind Calvert’s Mansion House, where George Calvert lived in the 17th century.
Gaulton explained this area has been under excavation since 2012 because of the immense amount of fill and rock in the area.
“Just to get a very thin deposit from the 1620s is a tremendous amount of work,” he said.
The three meters of digging they were able to accomplish did give additional information on the lives of tradesmen who constructed the Mansion House in the 1620s. In addition to bits of clothing, storage vessels and tobacco pipes, well preserved animal bones were uncovered, which Gaulton theorized are the remains of pigs that tradesmen ate while on the job.
Waste consistent with window manufacturing was also uncovered, which suggests windows were made by a glazier on site as opposed to having them shipped in from away.
This structure is probably the most important building in Ferryland’s early colonial history,” Gaulton said. “Stay tuned in future years in regards to what we do there.”
Ferryland’s waterfront area is, unfortunately, not as immaculately preserved as its inland neighbor. In fact, as you might expect, it is slowly being washed out to sea.
“Some features on the waterfront are not doing particularly well,” said Gaulton.
The walls of a privy along the shore is slowly seeing its walls destabilized, and is itself being filled in by rock and cobblestone.
In the southwest area of the waterfront, the sand bedding of a cobblestone road is washing away. After the sand is gone, the feature will effectively cease to exist.
“It’s taken just 13 years to wash away much of the underlying sand bedding in which these cobblestones are set,” said Gaulton.
The team decided to excavate the area while they had the opportunity, discovering a number of objects from the early to mid 17th century, including bricks, nails, and some finery.
Gaulton proposed continued excavation of the area before more deposits are lost to the sea.
“The waterfront area is still very important, but still an area of concern,” he said.
Alessandra McMillan, one of Gaulton’s masters students, gave a presentation of her own at the AGM. This year, her work focused on the South Side and North Side cemeteries in the area.
At first glance, there does not appear to be a great deal going on in the South Side Cemetery. However, McMillan discovered 946 graves with stone markers over the course of the summer. Graves with wooded markers would be long lost by now. Only 21 of the stones were marked with names and dates. The rest were mostly uncarved field stones made of local material, meant only to mark the location of a grave.
One of the oldest headstones she found belonged to Mary Saunders, who died in 1792 and was buried near the top of the hill. Close to the Saunders grave is a headstone fragment that only reads “ter.” While the rest of the inscription may potentially remain a mystery, the abundance of Carters in the cemetery is perhaps a clue to its owner.
The Bridget Rose plot, McMillan said, was the big find of the summer. Rose’s headstone is what McMillan calls a “folk” headstone, as it was likely unprofessionally carved locally by local people. Previous research indicates headstone production did not commence in Newfoundland until the 1830s, but the Rose headstone predates this by about 10 years.
“There’s the possibility for more, earlier headstones produced in Newfoundland other than the one that was found at the Colony itself,” she said.

Other headstones found in the cemetery belong to James Howe Carter, who died in 1859, and John William, who died in either 1856 or 1886, depending on what the barely legible inscription actually says.
McMillan found 56 graves in the North Side cemetery. Thirty-three were unmarked field stones, while 14 were carved headstones. The eastern end of the cemetery featured a row of nine depressions, which McMillan says could either be graves without markers, or simply a series of potato gardens.
“The actual boundaries for the cemetery are still undetermined,” she said. “It was very overgrown with rose bushes.”
An additional headstone found in the area, reading only “follow me,” could potentially be from the 1790s. Although the headstone is too faded to say for sure, it would make it the oldest one in the graveyard.
Sarah Gourlay closed out the AGM with her presentation of self-reliance in the colonies, specifically bread making.

This year, Gourlay conducted an investigation to chart the intricate network of components involved in bread-making across three time periods. Ingredients, tools, methods, and people were among the components she studied.
Gourlay even went as far as to bake her own bread in the bakery and brewhouse, pouring over old journals and recipes, noticing how breadmaking changed over the years. Of note, leftover yeast from the beer-making process was re-used to make bread, which facilitated the close proximity of bakeries and brewhouses in the 17th century.
“It’s a constant process that really went hand in hand,” Gourlay said.
Regarding self-reliance, she discovered that while there was much food production in the colony, massive amounts of flour, wheat, and hard tack had to be imported in order to sustain the population.
Gourlay noted that the introduction of a wheat mill, located on the aptly named Rennies Mill Road in St. John’s during the time of the industrial revolution, was a contributor to increased self-reliance in the colonies during this period.
The period spanning the two World Wars was the final era she examined. During this time, recipes often incorporated potatoes as a means to extend food provisions during hard times.
“We see a significant change here especially in the diaries and journals of women of the time talking about how hard it was to feed their families and having to use everything under the sun to fill up that bread to make it filling,” she said.