Avondale is a town located on

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

Avalon Peninsula The Avalon Peninsula (french: Péninsule d'Avalon) is a large peninsula that makes up the southeast portion of the island of Newfoundland. It is in size. The peninsula is home to 270,348 people, about 52% of Newfoundland's population, according ...

in the province of

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

, Canada. The community is situated at the southwestern head of

Conception Bay Conception Bay (CB) is a bay on the southeast coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The population (in 2011) of people living in municipalities (or unincorporated census subdivisions) located along the coast of Conception Bay was 90,490 making it on ...

in Division 1. It is located southwest of St. John's and northeast of Placentia. Prior to January 1, 1898 Avondale was known as Salmon Cove but was renamed to avoid confusion with two other nearby communities of the same name in the Port de Grave and Brigus Districts. The name Avondale was suggested by the parish priest Rev John Roe because of the resemblance to his native area in Ireland, taking the name from Thomas Moore's poem, "The Meeting of the Waters". Earliest record of settlement per Fishing Room Grants is for John Mahaney in 1773, a census of 1812 reports 12 inhabitants. Settlers to the area were primarily Irish Roman Catholic with a smaller number of Jersey French and English. Avondale incorporated the communities of Salmon Cove, Gasters, Northern Arm, and Southern Arm. In 1863, the Anglo American Telegraph Company set up a repeater station which was eventually taken over by the Reid Newfoundland Railway Company in the late 1880s when the

Newfoundland Railway The Newfoundland Railway operated on the island of Newfoundland from 1898 to 1988. With a total track length of , it was the longest narrow-gauge railway system in North America. Early construction ] In 1880, a committee of the Newfoundland Leg ...

was constructed through the area and a station was built. In addition to the railway station, it also hosted a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

, a

money order A money order is a directive to pay a pre-specified amount of money from prepaid funds, making it a more trusted method of payment than a cheque. History The money order system was established by a private firm in Great Britain in 1792 and was ...

office, and one

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

. It functioned as a

lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

ing,

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

and

farming Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

settlement in what was known as the

Harbour Main District A harbor (American English), harbour (British English; see spelling differences), or haven is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be docked. The term ''harbor'' is often used interchangeably with ''port'', which is a ...

. The population dwindled in the early 1900s as men began migrating to the eastern US (Boston and New York) to find work. Its first postmaster was Edward Kennedy who came to the area in 1889 after the railway was built.

CN Rail The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I railroad, Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern United States, M ...

abandoned its railway operations on Newfoundland in 1988 (see:

Terra Transport Terra Transport (TT) was the name for the ''Newfoundland Transportation Division'', a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian National Railway (CN), created in 1979 as a means to organize the company's operations on Newfoundland. Background Canadia ...

). The Avondale railway station remains preserved along with a small display of retired railway cars and a locomotive. The Avondale station is the oldest railway station in the province. Avondale has lost approximately one third of its population since 1976 when it numbered 937 residents.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...

, Avondale had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Avondale, Newfoundland And Labrador Towns in Newfoundland and Labrador

Demographics

See also

References