Ferryland is a town in

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 ...

on the Avalon Peninsula. According to the 2021 Statistics Canada

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

, its population is 371.

Seventeenth century settlement

Ferryland was originally established as a station for migratory fishermen in the late 16th century but had earlier been used by the

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: ** Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Ca ...

, and Portuguese. By the 1590s it was one of the most popular fishing harbours in Newfoundland and acclaimed by Sir

Walter Raleigh Sir Walter Raleigh (; – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebellio ...

. Ferryland was called "Farilham" by the Portuguese fishermen and "Forillon" by the French—it later became anglicized to its current name "Ferryland." (This should not be confused with the

Forillon National Park Forillon National Park (french: Parc national de Forillon), one of 42 national parks and park reserves across Canada, is located at the outer tip of the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec and covers . Created in 1970, Forillon was the first national ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Government of Canada, Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is ...

, which still keeps its French name.) The land was granted by charter to the London and Bristol Company in the 1610s and the vicinity became the location of a number of short-lived English colonies at Cuper's Cove, Bristol's Hope, and

Renews Renews–Cappahayden is a small fishing town on the southern shore of Newfoundland (island), Newfoundland, south of St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John's. The town was incorporated in the mid-1960s by amalgamating the formerly inde ...

and adjoined the colony of South Falkland. In 1620 the territory was granted to George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore who had obtained the holdings from William Vaughan. Calvert appointed Edward Wynne to establish a

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...

which became the first successful permanent colony in

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 ...

growing to a population of 100 by 1625. In 1623, Calvert's grant was confirmed and expanded. The Charter of Avalon was granted to Lord Baltimore by James I. Dated 7 April 1623 it created the Province of Avalon on the island of Newfoundland and gave Baltimore complete authority over all matters in the territory. That same year Baltimore chose Ferryland as the principal area of settlement. In the 1660s, the colony was attacked by the Dutch. The town was destroyed by New France in 1696 during the Avalon Peninsula Campaign of

King William's War King William's War (also known as the Second Indian War, Father Baudoin's War, Castin's War, or the First Intercolonial War in French) was the North American theater of the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), also known as the War of the Grand Alli ...

. Virtually forgotten for centuries, excavations of the original settlement began in earnest in the late 1980s and continue to this day.

Historic designations

The site of the 17th-century Colony of Avalon was designated a

National Historic Site of Canada National Historic Sites of Canada (french: Lieux historiques nationaux du Canada) are places that have been designated by the federal Minister of the Environment on the advice of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (HSMBC), as being ...

in 1953. It was also designated a Municipal Heritage District in 1998. The Historic Ferryland Museum was designated a Municipal Heritage Site in 2006.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by Statistics Canada, Ferryland 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.

Gallery

File:FerrylandMansion 2011.jpg, Excavated foundation of mansion house. File:James Yonge's map of Ferryland, ca. 1663..jpg, Map of Ferryland in 1663 Image:Mapof ferryland.jpg, Map of Ferryland in 1693

References

External links