Located on what is now known as the Southern Shore, a stretch of coastline on the east coast of the Avalon Peninsula, approximately 80 kilometers south of the city of St. John’s, the town of Ferryland sits at the edge of the water, and has for the last 400 years (Figure 1). Ferryland was founded on the traditional territory of the Beothuk people, who occupied much of the island of Newfoundland.
Prior to permanent settlement, Ferryland was known as a hospitable harbour with shelter for boats and people alike. It was a favorite location for seasonal fishers, and the English were known to have been exploiting the cod stocks off the coast of Newfoundland by 1502; Ferryland was well known for its quantity of fish by the early 17th century (Quinn 1977). With the cod fishers came the need to prepare the fish for their journey back to Europe, and fishing stages and flakes were constructed each season to support the industry, only to be abandoned for the winter. Today, the hills surrounding Ferryland are bare and the impact of humanity on the landscape is very clear. While much of Newfoundland remains covered by extensive forests, settlements that were preceded by seasonal fishing operations were often stripped of trees.
Documentary and archaeological evidence demonstrates that Ferryland was occupied by the Beothuk people, as well as seasonally by European fishers beginning in the 16th century. Several Beothuk artifacts and features such as hearths have been located at Ferryland, which was considered to be far outside of what was thought of as their traditional territory (Marshall 1995; Pastore 1989; 1992; Gaulton 2001). While it is unclear exactly what relationship existed between the Beothuk and the European fishers in Ferryland, the identification of grape seeds in Beothuk hearths, a fruit not native to Newfoundland, is evidence that the two groups were trading by at least one point in time (Gaulton 2001). By the time Sir George Calvert, the First Lord Baltimore, and his settlers arrived, however, the Beothuk people were not inhabiting the site, and in fact it appeared that they were only there sporadically for brief periods, perhaps visiting for trading or scavenging resources after the fishers had left for the winter (Gaulton 2001).
Captain Edward Wynne, the first governor of Ferryland, spoke of the need to conserve the trees upon his arrival at the site in 1621 with 11 settlers, under the instruction and patronage of Calvert (Cell 1982). A letter written by Captain Daniel Powell, who brought another ship of settlers to Ferryland in 1622, included observations on how the coastline near Ferryland was “so spoiled by the fishermen, that it is great pity to behold them, and without redress, undoubtedly will be the ruin of this good land—for they wastefully bark, fell, and leave more wood behind them to rot, than they use about their stages, although they employ a world of wood upon them and by these, their abuses, do so encumber the woods everywhere near the shore.” (Cell 1982).
Calvert’s goal was to establish a permanent settlement in the harbour, an economic enterprise like those established by other companies in the “new world.” Known as the colony of Avalon, the settlement was constructed on partially deforested land, and as a result, Ferryland became one of the first settlements in North America to be constructed primarily out of stone.
Archaeology has revealed the well-preserved foundations of the Ferryland settlement, one piece in the history of a place which was home to many different groups of people, most of whom never encountered the previous occupants of the space. Today, Ferryland is still home to a little over 400 people, four times the number who lived there in the early 17th century. The historical settlement, located in the inner harbour of the outport town, plays an important role for the present community, as both an economic boost as a tourist attraction and a point of local pride. Many people in Ferryland have worked for the Colony of Avalon Foundation over the years, proving time and time again that historical sites are important and valuable cultural heritage assets, and remain valid and contributing aspects of their communities.
Colony of Avalon 1621–1637
Figure 2 – The mansion house
Calvert obtained the land, already known by its reputation as having a nearby fishing ground, from Sir William Vaughan, in order to construct the colony and make a new home for his family (Gaulton 2006). Captain Wynne and his handful of settlers were the first to arrive and begin building the colony, starting with a 44-x-15-foot dwelling that was constructed to house the settlers. Later in 1623, the “mansion house,” the largest and grandest residence built in Ferryland, was constructed—the home of the Calvert family. The mansion house was constructed from locally quarried slate (Figure 2), the outcrops of which were within a few hundred meters of the settlement (Gaulton 1997), while other slates were gathered from additional outcrops nearby, and the material was used to make roof tiles, pot lids, sundials, and gravestones (Gaulton 1997; Lacy, et al. 2018).
Figure 3 – Broken 17th-century slate roof tile.
The Colony of Avalon, the idealistic name of Calvert’s settlement, was located within the naturally created “pool”: a sandbar or arm of gravel and sand that curves out from the Ferryland Downs, shifting with the tides every year and creating a naturally protected harbour. Ferryland was organized in a similar manner to other English port towns of the period, with a large stone quay projecting into the harbour, waterfront storage buildings, a cobblestone street, and other buildings such as dwellings, kitchens, and a forge (Gaulton 2006, p. 33). During the Calvert period in Ferryland, most structures would have been roofed with locally quarried slate (Figure 3), as is evidenced from the vast number of slate tile deposits which have been identified within early-17th-century structures at the settlement (Gaulton 1997; Lacy 2017; Spiwak 2020).
The most dramatic features of the settlement were the ditch, earthworks, and palisade, which surrounded the entire site. The fortifications, crossed on the east by a wooden bridge, were approximately 6 meters wide in many places, and ringed an internal earthwork that supported a large wooden palisade that surrounded not only the settlement, but also an anthropomorphic mound in the southeast corner of the settlement, the bastion, which once contained a cannon(s) and provided an excellent view out of the only viable entrance to the otherwise protected harbour.
Figure 4 – The waterfront wall
Wynne and his early settlers built a forge, a brew and bake house for beer and bread, a seawall as part of the harbour front and wharf area, as well as a stable for horses, a kitchen garden where many crops were raised for the settlement, and many other buildings (Figure 4). Through the archaeological record, evidence of high-status goods has identified the potential for inhabitants with some disposable income at the site—through gold-covered glass beads, ceramics like North Italian marbled slipware (which were expensive but not only used by gentry), a gold gilt processional cross, and a number of other objects.
It was Calvert’s goal to have his settlement be a place of religious tolerance, in a time of turmoil in Britain. Calvert announced himself as Catholic in 1625 after leaving his position as the secretary to the king, four years after his colony had begun, and wished to see the settlement as a place where Anglicans and Catholics could worship freely and without persecution. Accounts inform archaeologists that while there was no formal church constructed, as far as the excavations have revealed, the mansion house was used for both Anglican and Catholic services, much to the chagrin of many of the settlers (Stourton 1628). Although he had been told of the favorable weather in Newfoundland, Calvert found his first winter in his colony cold and difficult, and struggled with the living conditions. In the particularly difficult winter of 1629, he wrote “of 100 persons, 50 sick at a time, myself being one, and nyne or ten of them dyed” (Cell 1982). These events, described in a letter to the King of England, prompted Calvert to ask for additional land in Virginia, where the climate was more favorable and where he might try to start another settlement. While the request for land in Virginia was not granted, Calvert was eventually granted land in what is today Maryland to start another settlement as an economic enterprise. George Calvert died in 1632 after he returned to England and did not witness his son Cecil found the settlement of St. Mary’s City in Maryland or have the City of Baltimore (from the Irish Baile an Tí Mhóir, or “town of the big house” [Egan 2016]) named for him.
The Pool Plantation 1637–1696
After the Calverts left Ferryland, the settlement continued to operate. While it survived on the coast of Newfoundland, it did not prosper for some time. In 1637, Ferryland came under new leadership. Sir David Kirke and the Marquis of Hamilton and the Earls of Pembroke and Holland were all named coproprietors of the Island of Newfoundland by King Charles I (Gaulton 2006). Kirke was appointed to oversee the economic aspects of this venture and arrived at Ferryland with his family and 100 additional settlers, to set up the settlement as the base of his operation, removing William Hill, who had been left to manage the plantation.
Along with adding a tax on foreign fishing vessels and rent for fishing rooms, Kirke fundamentally changed the organization of the settlement itself, developing it into his “Pool Plantation.” A tavern was built over Calvert’s horse barn, and later the “Kirke House” was constructed adjacent to the brew and bake house, which absorbed these earlier structures into its kitchen. After the death of Charles I, Kirke, who was a loyalist, was seen in an unfavorable light, and upon returning to England in 1651, Kirke was imprisoned and died behind bars. He left his widow, Lady Sara Kirke, and four sons behind. Lady Sara chose to remain in Ferryland, and took over the operations of the plantation, and is considered to be one of the first female entrepreneurs in the “new world” (Gaulton 2006). Local legend suggests that Lady Sara was buried on the Ferryland Downs, near her Pool Plantation (Gaulton and Tuck 2003).
In the late 1600s, Ferryland was the subject of two attacks, first by the Dutch, and later by the French. The Dutch raid in 1673 was the result of retaliation against the English, who had just pushed the Dutch out of their previous colonial settlements in New York. Four Dutch ships attacked the small fishing enterprise, destroying homes and burning fishing boats, including property belonging to Lady Sara Kirke and her sister, Lady Hopkins (Lovelace 1675). It is apparent that no lives were lost during this attack, and the settlers remained to rebuild afterward.
The French attack on Ferryland, and much of the scattered settlements on the Avalon Peninsula, came as the result of war between Britain and France, declared in 1689. The French had already occupied portions of the south coast of the island, and departed from their settlement of Plaisance (Placentia) in 1696, led by Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville by land and Jacques-François de Brouillon by sea. On Monday, September 21, 1696, the French fleet arrived at Ferryland and proceeded to ransack and burn the settlement (Clappe et al. 1697). The settlers who escaped without being captured were forced to spend the winter away from their homes; however many eventually returned to the Ferryland harbour again the following spring, and it has been permanently occupied by European settlers ever since. Three of the sons of Sir David and Lady Sara Kirke were captured and taken to Placentia as prisoners, where two of them died, and the third son died later in St. John’s as a result of his earlier imprisonment.
Archaeological Excavations in Ferryland
Figure 5 – Seventeenth-century pipe fragments
Test excavations were carried out in Ferryland as early as the 1880s by M.F. Howley, and additional testing was conducted around the Pool and on the mainland in the 1930s by Dr. Stanley Brooks, an entomologist from the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Tuck 1996; Gaulton 2006). While the location of Calvert’s Colony was never forgotten, its exact placement in Ferryland had not been completely narrowed down, so these early days of digging in the town explored several possible areas around the harbour. While Brooks believed that the famous mansion house was located on Ferryland mainland, J.R. Harper believed the settlement was closer to the Pool, and his 1959 excavations revealed artifacts from the mid- to late-17th century, including pipe bowls (Figure 5), case bottle glass, and North Devon sgraffito ceramics (Gaulton 2006).
Memorial University of Newfoundland began test excavations at the site in 1968 based on these findings, and in the 1980s, under the direction of Dr. James Tuck, formal excavations began in an effort to locate the 17th-century settlement. Those early excavations revealed that the site was better preserved than anyone had previously expected (Tuck 1996; Gaulton 2006). After a brief hiatus, excavations at Ferryland have been ongoing through present day with support through Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Colony of Avalon Foundation. This long-standing community-university partnership continues to conduct excavations, run tours, and house the collections for the site in its storage facility and museum on the site.
Figure 6 – Ongoing excavations near the “prette street”
Throughout the years of excavation, the grounds surrounding the Pool have revealed the stone foundations and lower walls of many buildings, including Calvert’s mansion house, the Kirke house, stables, warehouses, docks, a courtyard, a kitchen, a forge, several houses, defensive earthworks, and the “prette street” which Edward Wynne referenced in his letters back to Calvert (Figure 6). The cobblestone street runs the length of the site, and while only some of it is currently exposed to be walked upon by thousands of visitors every summer, the extent of the 17th-century feature is protected beneath sediment and the modern road to the Pool. There are plans in the future to reroute the harbour road in order to expose the full length of the 17th-century cobble street, but it is currently unknown when this will take place. Test pitting carried out by Gaulton (et al. 2017) cleared a viable area for the rerouted road, and simultaneously uncovered evidence of additional 17th-century structures outside of the confines of the fortified settlement.
Excavations have revealed not only the building techniques implemented at the settlement, but how the early European settlers who lived there conducted their lives, and the environment in which they lived. While the first stone house at Ferryland measured 4.5 meters x 13.3 meters, it had to act as living quarters for all settlers upon its construction, until other houses were built (Cell 1982). In contrast, Calvert’s mansion house was built for the Calvert family shortly before their arrival and consisted of the central mansion house, a courtyard, and several semi-attached domestic and non-domestic structures (Tuck and Gaulton 2013). The kitchen garden, although Wynne boasted of its productivity, has been re-created and contains plants that early letters suggested the settlers had been growing themselves with some success. A horse stable-turned-ale house indicates that while the wealthy continued to display their status through gold beads and expensive objects, there was still a tavern for the fishers to relax in after a day on the rough Atlantic Ocean (Ingram 2016).
In 2011, Clausnitzer’s thesis explored the material culture of the 17th-century brew and bakehouse structure on the east side of the enclosed settlement. Through analysis of the artifacts and structural components, his research determined that the original structure was built in the early 1620s, as is indicated in early letters, and was dismantled to make room for another building less than 20 years later.
Hawkins (2016) examined the uses and importation of the Surrey-Hampshire Border ware ceramics in Newfoundland and English North America. Her research was the first to extensively analyze Border ware ceramics on the East Coast of North America, and can aid with further identification of English Border ware vessels in colonial settlements.
Hawkins (2016) examined the uses and importation of Surrey-Hampshire border ware ceramics in Newfoundland and English North America. Her research was the first to extensively analyze Border ware ceramics on the east coast of North America, and can aid with further identification of English Border ware vessels in colonial settlements.
Figure 7 – The view overlooking the settlement from Downs
Lacy (2017) conducted an excavation in search of the “lost” 17th-century burial ground in Ferryland, which would likely contain the dead from the fateful winter of 1629. She used spatial data from similar British settlements along the east coast of North America to help inform the trench locations in an attempt to identify burial shafts in Ferryland. The burials have yet to be identified; however excavations have revealed where they are not, and have identified many additional aspects of the site, such as locating the southern defensive ditch and embankment, a slate processing deposit, and a previously unknown 17th-century occupation area east of the fortified settlement (Figure 7).
Although the excavation has been ongoing for decades, new information is being revealed every year that changes our understanding of the site and the lives of the people who built it.
Ongoing Investigations and a National Historic Site
In 1953, the Colony of Avalon was officially designated as a National Historic Site of Canada, giving it protection for future generations, as a testament to early settlers’ ingenuity in 17th-century North America. With the expansion into the current building, the Colony of Avalon Foundation provides a museum, visitor resources, a collections and conservation lab, and collections storage for artifacts recovered from the excavations. Excavations are ongoing under the direction of Dr. Barry Gaulton of Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, aided by eager undergraduates, graduate students, community members, and volunteers who all work hard to continue research into the settlement and how those early settlers lived and worked.
Ferryland is a significant site, not only for the archaeological record of colonial settlement and fortification in 17th-century North America, but as an economic center and point of community pride for the people of Ferryland. After the French attack in 1696, people living in Ferryland left the settlement at the Pool and were sent back to Devon, but many of these individuals returned to Ferryland the following year. Ferryland has been an occupied community ever since, and ties to the historical site and the archaeological excavations are located within the heart of the community, on the shores of the harbour. Many residents work at the site, or have worked there over the years, being part of the museum, the conservation work, guiding tours, keeping the grounds, or being part of the excavation itself. If Calvert’s goal was for his settlement to be an economic enterprise, in some way, it has found that calling as an archaeological site providing employment to locals and students from Ferryland and other communities along the Southern Shore.
As a National Historic Site of Canada, the archaeological dig at the Colony of Avalon is open to the public during the excavation season, usually between June and September of every year. They are welcome to visit the museum and take a guided tour or borrow guidebooks to take themselves around the site. During the week, archaeologists working at the site are there to answer questions about their ongoing research, creating a unique opportunity to see the excavations and interact with archaeologists while they work, which is often difficult to do given the remote locations of many excavations.
The Colony of Avalon Foundation offers an experience for interested visitors who want to get a little closer to the action, and support the not-for-profit organization along the way: “Archaeologist for a Day.” This experience gives the visitor the chance to excavate alongside archaeologists on the dig, learn about the archaeology of the site, help recover artifacts, and have lunch at the nearby Lighthouse Picnics.
Recent research at Ferryland covers a variety of topics related to the Beothuk occupation, as well as the 17th-century to the 19th-century European occupation at the site. Along with Dr. Gaulton’s ongoing work dealing with multiple aspects of the settlement including plans to eventually re-excavate and fully expose the 17th-century street built by Edward Wynne and his settlers in the early days of Ferryland, graduate student research is ongoing at the Colony. Duncan Williams’s research examines life in early 19th-century Ferryland, and the changing settlement patterns that occurred as the center of the settlement moved from the Pool to other parts of the protected harbour. With the rise of a new permanent settlement and resident-controlled settlement, Williams explores the Downs House, which was occupied by several prominent individuals in 1800–1850, and is about 300 meters from the Colony of Avalon archaeological site (Williams 2018). J.D. Archer’s project explores the kitchen associated with George Calvert’s mansion house, in the center of the settlement (2021). His research examines a collection excavated in the kitchen with the aim of identifying different uses of the structure between the Calvert and Kirke periods as well as answering questions related to working versus living spaces.
Lewis-Sing’s research involves a macro-analysis of the paleoethnobotanical record from contexts associated with the 16th-century Beothuk occupation at Ferryland. The samples used in the project also contain evidence of the European migratory fishery occupation. Grape seeds, a non-native plant to Newfoundland, have been identified as well as many other varieties of plant which offer the opportunity to investigate potential cross-cultural interactions between Beothuk people and European fishers. Spiwak’s ongoing research looks at the large-scale use of local slate at Ferryland, through a number of nearby quarry locations exploited by skilled tradesmen (2020). Little research has been done on the quarrying and slate tile manufacturing process at the colony thus far, and her research aims to determine how 17th-century quarrying and slate processing in Newfoundland may have been derived from the homelands of the settlers, particularly Wales.
Conclusions
The Colony of Avalon was a settlement built with the dreams of economic gain and religious freedom in the “new world” and has endured on the Southern Shore on the east coast of Newfoundland for centuries, despite deaths, hardship, and destruction. While often overlooked beside its famous counterparts such as Plymouth, or Jamestown, Ferryland was a hub of activity from 1621 onward. Ongoing research conducted at the site is expanding archaeologists’ understanding of what life was like in 17th-, 18th- , and even 19th- and 20th-century Newfoundland, and more information is being uncovered every day.
If you visit the site today, you will find community archaeology and local pride in history coupled with high-quality collections management and archaeological research, all carried out at the same time. Ferryland is truly a unique archaeological site as well as a unique settlement in the 17th-century colonial period in Newfoundland and mainland North America’s history. The style of construction, continuous occupation of the area, relationship with early fishers and Beothuk people, and ongoing heritage of the landscape itself makes it a wonderful place to visit and study.
About the Author
Robyn Lacy received her Ph.D. in Archaeology from Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, where her research focused on the development of burial landscapes in 17th-century colonial burial grounds in northeast North America. Her second book, Daisy Wheel, Hexfoil, Hexafoil, Rosette: Protective Marks in Gravestone Art, was published in 2024 with Berghahn Books. Her work in gravestone conservation takes her across Newfoundland, and she regularly presents her research at international conferences and on her research blog, Spadeandthegrave.com.
References
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