Merasheen history 2
At 35 km in length and up to 9 km wide, this largest of the Placentia Bay islands was once home to hundreds of people. Its position in the centre of the Bay, between Long Island and Isle Valen, made it an ideal location for prosecuting the region's lucrative fishery.
Merasheen Island is believed to have been occupied by French fishermen as early as the sixteenth century. People of British descent began to settle in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Several communities were
listed by the first Newfoundland Census in 1836. Merasheen, the largest settlement on the island, had 188 inhabitants by that year, and there was a total of 62 settlers at the smaller communities of Tacks Beach, Virgin Cove and Brule (sometimes called Great Brule in later census reports to distinguish it from Little Brule to the north). On the western shore. Virgin Cove was the closest of these communities to Merasheen, while the most distant was Brule on the northern end of the island. Tacks Beach was located on King Island, the largest of the Ragged Islands, just off Merasheen Island's northwest coast. By the 1845 Census Merry Harbour (11 km north of Virgin Cove) and Indian Harbour (5 km southeast across the Island from Merry Harbour) were also recorded with respective populations of 11 and 20. In the Tacks Beach region. Baker's Cove was first recorded with 11 inhabitants in 1874, Coopers Cove with 9 in 1884, and Best's Harbour with 43 in 1901. As various other small settlements - such as those at Jean de Gaunt (alt. John the Gong) and those on the Barren and Harbour islands - sprang up, the region became one of the most highly populated in Placentia Bay.
Efforts to distinguish among the myriad of nooks and coves on Merasheen Island resulted in many descriptive names which survived into the twentieth century, including Dough Ball Cove, Forked Duck Rock, Jaw Bones Cove, Potato Point and Naked Man Ridge (the location of Captain James Cook's station when he surveyed Newfoundland's coast in the 1760s). While many of the areas, such as Baker's Cove and Best's Harbour, were named for early settlers, others were named for geographical features — including Rose au Rue (Roche Roux, "reddish rocks"). Merasheen was an Anglicization of "Mer aux Chiens" (ocean of the seadogs or seals). Coopers Cove may have been named for a barrel-making enterprise in the area and Jean de Gaunt appears to have been named after Edward Ill's son. Indian Harbour, Howley suggested, was simply a translation of the French name "Havre Sauvage," but Jukes thought that the settlement was named for Red Indians, who at that site were the victims or perpetrators of "some atrocity." At any rate, by the late 1800s there were several families in the community, including the names Bavis, Hayes, Kerrivan, Rogers and Wise.
While there was some involvement in the Bank fishery, the economy of Merasheen Island was dominated by the inshore cod, herring and lobster fisheries. In the early 1800s Christopher Spurrier and Company - and later C.F. Bennett and Company - had established one of the region's most important trading centres at Isle Valen. William Brown of the Tacks Beach region also traded, with a vessel named the Good Intention. Harbour Buffett and Spencers Cove on Long Island also became dominant trading centres. By 1920 the Warehams had opened a herring factory at Spencers Cove and were collecting fish from communities on Merasheen Island. From the early 1900s there were also several lobster factories on the island, while at Rose au Rue there was a Norwegian whale factory employing about 50 people.
As there were no roads connecting the settlements, many had their own churches, graveyards and schools. The feeling of isolation was acute. With the start of World War II and the construction of the Argentia Base there was an exodus from Merasheen Island, culminating in the resettlement program of the 1960s, under which the remaining residents moved.
Sources: Maxwell BoU (1973), Howard Brown (1973), M.F. Howley (1979), J.B. Jukes (1842), Donald L. Reid (1972), Anthony Traverse (interview, Dec. 1990), Robert Wells (1960), DA (Aug. 1976), McAlpines Maritime Gazetteer (1904), McAlpines Newfoundland Directory (1894), Monitor (May 1979), Newfoundland Lifestyle (Oct. 1985), Report of the South Coast Commission 1957 (1957), Statistics, Federal-Provincial Resettlement Program (1975), Newfoundland Historical Society (Merasheen Island),