Heart's Content is an incorporated town in Trinity Bay on the Bay de Verde Peninsula 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.

Geography

The

natural harbour 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 ...

that makes up the town is located on the east side of Trinity Bay and it is built along the northeast side and the southeast base of this harbour. It opens out to Trinity Bay in a generally southwestern direction and protected from the harsh northern and eastern winds of the North Atlantic. Heart's Content is also at the crossroads of the main highway for Trinity Bay on the western side of the Bay de Verde peninsula and the highway cutting across the Bay de Verde peninsula between

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seyche ...

on the

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 o ...

side and Heart's Content. The climate of the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent land areas is influenced by the temperatures of the surface waters and water currents as well as the winds blowing across the waters. Because of the oceans' great capacity for retaining heat, the climate of Heart's Content are moderate and free of extreme seasonal variations. Precipitation falls on the area both as snow in the wintertime and moderate rainfall in summer. The

Gulf Stream The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension the North Atlantic Drift, is a warm and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida and up the eastern coastline of the Unit ...

and

Labrador Current The Labrador Current is a cold current in the North Atlantic Ocean which flows from the Arctic Ocean south along the coast of Labrador and passes around Newfoundland, continuing south along the east coast of Canada near Nova Scotia. Near Nova Sc ...

converge just off the coast of Newfoundland and provide for very dense fog that can linger in the area for days.

Transatlantic cable

Heart's Content was given its place in the history of international communications by

Cyrus West Field Cyrus West Field (November 30, 1819July 12, 1892) was an American businessman and financier who, along with other entrepreneurs, created the Atlantic Telegraph Company and laid the first telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean in 1858. Early ...

who chose it as the terminus of his

Transatlantic telegraph cable Transatlantic telegraph cables were undersea cables running under the Atlantic Ocean for telegraph communications. Telegraphy is now an obsolete form of communication, and the cables have long since been decommissioned, but telephone and data a ...

, leading to establishment of the Heart's Content Cable Station. * 1855 – Heart's Content is chosen as the location for the first transatlantic submarine telegraph cable. * 1858 (August 5) – The first ever transatlantic cable, connecting Valentia, Ireland, to a site at Bay Bulls Arm, directly across Trinity Bay from Heart's Content, is landed. Due to a malfunction, its operation was terminated on October 20, 1858. * In July 1866, when the cable was brought ashore, it was described as "a sheltered nook, where ships may ride at anchor safe from the storms of the ocean…on the beach is a small village of sixty houses, most of them the dwelling of these hardy men who vex the northern sea with their fisheries…" * 1866 (July 27) – A new transatlantic cable is landed at Heart's Content by the SS ''Great Eastern''. * 1873 and 1874 – Two more cables are laid to Valentia. * 1880 and 1894 – Two more cables were laid to Valentia, making Heart's Content one of the most important cable stations in the world. * 1918 – The brick cable station is enlarged to serve the "Anglo-American Telegraph Company and its successor,

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company chang ...

, until its closure in 1965. * 1968 – The brick cable building closed in 1965 is bought by the Provincial Government as an historic site and soon after begins a restoration project to make the almost 100-year-old building a communications museum. * 1974 – (July 27) – 108 years after the landing of the transatlantic cable in the New World, the restored communications museum officially opens.

Rendell Forge

The Rendell Forge is a small, one-room, one storey wooden blacksmith shop located in Heart's Content. The Rendell family had a long history of blacksmithing in the community. The first to arrive was blacksmith Charles Rendell, who moved to Heart's Content from Trinity, Trinity Bay, in the early 1800s to craft ironwork for vessels. In 1864–65, four Rendells were listed as blacksmiths: Charles, G., James, and John. The 1904 directory lists five: Giles, Tolson, Charles Sr, John, and John T. Ted Rowe writes,

Descendants of Charles Rendell produced an unbroken line in the blacksmith trade in Heart’s Content for three generations. His four sons Charles, Giles, James and John all took up the trade. Son Charles was also Heart’s Content’s first constable, appointed in the 1830s, and was prominent in the Loyal Orange Association. Bela, son of Giles, operated this forge with his son Jim in the 1920s. When business fell off during the depression years Jim moved his family to Hants Harbour. In 1941 at the age of 60 Bela went to Scotland as a blacksmith with the Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit. He returned to Heart’s Content at the end of the war and continued with the forge in the 1950s, turning out grapnels, horseshoes and custom ironwork. Following his death his son Ray worked the operation on a part-time basis.

James Rendell (son of Charles Sr) moved to East Boston, Massachusetts, where he worked as a blacksmith, machinist, and businessman, and where he married Rebecca Rendell (née Pugh) of King's Road, St. John's on December 10, 1892. Some of the Rendell blacksmiths went to Gander to work on the building of the airport and town in the 1940s. The last of the Rendells to work in the forge, Ray, used the building until circa 1990. Following Ray's death in 2005, his widow Myrtle Marion Rendell and children passed ownership of the building and the land on which it sits over to the Mizzen Heritage Society on 11 July 2006.

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 ...

, Heart's Content 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.

Tourist attractions

* Heart's Content Cable Station Provincial Historic Site * Society of United Fishermen No.1 * Cable Staff House Registered Heritage Site * Heart's Content Lighthouse * Heart's Content Harbour Authority * Trinity South D'Iberville Trail (Southern Terminus)

References

External links

Baccalieu TrailStatistics CanadaPicture of the lighthouseHeart's Content - Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, vol. 2, p. 890-896.Aids to Navigation
''Canadian Coast Guard''